


Garcy: A History

by nicmacallan



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, Complete, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Garcy October 2019, Post-Canon Fix-It, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-24 15:02:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21340153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicmacallan/pseuds/nicmacallan
Summary: Regardless of whether Timeless gets a third season or a movie, I think we can all agree that this story and these characters deserve to live on. In these troubled times, we need as much historical insight, love, laughter, and sexy Croatian antiheroes as we can possibly get. A/A, Romance, Headcanon, hurt/comfort, #Garcy #Timeless #AltEnding
Relationships: Garcia Flynn/Lucy Preston
Comments: 6
Kudos: 67





	Garcy: A History

**Author's Note:**

> First of all let me just admit something: I can’t with Lyatt, I really can’t. (Sorry, not sorry.) From the awkward, forced chemistry to the supposedly “MFEO” one night stand that was apparently so “amazing” that Wyatt literally RAN toward his newly-alive ex hours afterward, without even pausing to notify his latest fling that he was out...like I said, I cannot. Nothing against Wyatt as a character, or the actors, or the writers. In fact, I think it’s pretty obvious that Wyatt and Lucy DO love each other. As friends. 
> 
> Because as anyone will tell you - or, anyone who has ever tried having sex with a really good friend, only to discover (oops) that their physical chemistry just isn’t the sexual kind - you cannot fake sexual chemistry. It fizzles into awkward dialogue and excuses every time. And not in a cute way.
> 
> Garcy, on the other hand, that is a pairing I can get behind. Nuanced and complicated, not to mention simmering with raw physical attraction, yes please. As early as the pilot episode, we see these characters unable to rip their eyes off each other, even when various weapons are being pointed in their direction. It’s obvious that they cannot escape that connection, even if they wanted to, which they clearly do not. As a writer, I couldn’t help but percolate on all the many different situations that could expose the way these characters struggle with this attraction. So I did a thing. Maybe I’ll do a few more things. Who knows?

Chapter One: Hollywoodland, the Morning After

Even before Wyatt left, Lucy had been going over and over that night in her head, trying to figure out what had happened.

Or, maybe not what had happened, because she got the gist. Kisses were shared, clothes were discarded, very personal places were touched. Just the thought of it all made Lucy blush. But not because she was remembering how it had felt to have Wyatt’s hands on her body, or his lips on her lips, or his...no, it was more that she still didn’t fully comprehend why it happened. 

Why, after all that time, did Wyatt finally decide to kiss her? Was it just because they were finally alone together, finally in a safe place, comfortable for the first time in as long as either of them could remember? Was it solace that led them to share a bed at Hedy’s house? Convenience? Fun? Or something deeper and more inevitable? Even after it finally happened, as Wyatt fell asleep in her arms, Lucy wondered. What was he thinking? How was he feeling? Was he as excited about being with her as she was about being with him? And was she really excited, or just relieved? 

Honestly, it had been so long since Lucy had been touched by a man in that way, so confusing after what had happened with Noah (her would’ve-been husband, who now would never be) and what had never really happened with all the men before him. Okay, so there hadn’t really been that many. Three total, if she was being honest. Until Wyatt. He was the fourth, and the first, in his own way. He was the first man who had ever made her wonder what he was thinking, so much of the time. All the time, really. But especially in bed. It was an unnerving feeling, not knowing whether someone thought of you as amazing, or if that was just a word they echoed after you said it first. And what is “amazing,” really, to someone like Wyatt? She honestly could only guess. Which was, in a way, kind of exciting. Lucy guessed.

And then, Flynn walked in.

Suddenly, she no longer had to wonder what Wyatt was thinking. Because, when it came to Flynn, he was as transparent as could be. Wyatt’s hatred for the man blatantly showed in the instant twitching of his muscles, the suddenly violent grip of his fingers on his own jean-clad legs, in the deepness of his frown. Those soft lips, the ones she’d so recently kissed, became a deep frown of disgust. Clearly, Wyatt couldn’t wait to get away from Flynn, it seemed, and everyone else in the room - including Lucy. 

“Just keep him on a leash,” he spat, striding around Flynn while the taller man stood casually and smirked. Rufus and Jiya shared a look, but didn’t dare mock the situation. At least, not until after Wyatt left the room.

Feeling a bit like a desperate pet, Lucy jumped up and followed Wyatt down the hall. 

“Hey, hey.” She struggled to find the best way to defuse Wyatt’s mood. Diplomacy, that was her job. “I know, I KNOW.” 

She spread her hands in a gesture of peace, but Wyatt wasn’t having it.

“It’s just seeing Flynn here, with us. I don’t like it.”

Lucy repressed the urge to make a Captain Obvious reference. “I don’t like it either. But he’s on our side now, and he CAN help us.”

Wyatt put his hands on his hips. “Yeah he can, but will he? I mean, he’s got what he wants, so now what?”

“Now….” Lucy searched for an answer, but all she could think about was how quickly last night was fading away. How badly she wanted to hold onto that feeling, that sensation of being safe and wanted, for just a few minutes more. Maybe it would help to remind him. “Can we just forget about Flynn…” Keep it light, Lucy, don’t come off too needy. “...For like, a minute, because we have each other. ...Don’t we?”

“Yes.” Was it her imagination, or was Wyatt’s smile a little forced?

Okay, Lucy, that’s enough. Don’t push it. But then, she’d always been terrible at following her own advice.

“I mean, the other night, it was….”

“It was...pretty amazing.”

“Right?” Excitement, relief, followed by sheer, giddy joy. “Because that’s what I thought. We agree!” Her smile stretched across her whole face, and Lucy didn’t care if she looked goofy. She felt goofy.

“We do.”

“So...what do we do now?” Kiss me, she begged, silently.

Instead, Wyatt shrugged, looking up and away. “Well, we’re already living together. So, it’s a pretty big step.” His phone chimed, and he reached for it, breaking eye contact again. Lucy barely noticed, she was so ecstatic to hear that they were on the same page. Or, at least, in the same bunker. It was a start.

“Nowhere to go but down,” she joked. 

“That’s right.” He smiled, but he looked distracted. Then, his smile faded. 

“What?”

As suddenly as his mood had shifted at the appearance of Flynn, it was nothing compared to that moment. Wyatt seemed to shut down, or shut Lucy off from himself, completely. Dismissive and cold, he turned away.

“I’ll be right back.”

Lucy watched him go, confused and unsettled. Something was wrong. Was it something she did? Something she said? Had she come on too strong, brought up their relationship too soon, seemed too desperate? She had to know.

“Wait, Wyatt?”

“Lucy!” Rufus’s voice interrupted what was sure to be an all-out humiliation in the making. Lucy turned away, swallowing her words, and her doubts. There would be plenty of time to chase after Wyatt later. For now, maybe it was best to give him some space, and let him decide how he really felt about her on his own schedule.

The news about Hedy’s patent and her resulting success was a welcome distraction.

But then, the alarm. Denise and Flynn were instantly on high alert, and Lucy followed Flynn down the hall, searching for Wyatt. Even then, she noticed how Flynn kept one eye on her, even stepping in front of her to shield her from the possible threat at the entrance. That was stupid, Lucy thought. Whoever broke in, they would probably be after Flynn. So standing behind her would’ve made a lot more sense. Plus, he didn’t have a gun.

Heart pounding, Lucy watched as Denise surveyed the broken hatch, and then quickly lowered her weapon. 

“What?”

Denise’s face was a mixture of surprise and annoyance. “Nobody broke in. They broke out.”

Suddenly, Lucy remembered the story Rufus had told her, about the weeks she was in Rittenhouse’s custody. The time he’d tried to break out of the bunker, and come after her…. But why would he do that now? She had already been saved. She was right here.

Right where he’d left her.

Chapter Two: Salem

“Lucy.”

“Where have you been.” Lucy tried to sound calm, and failed. “I’ve been calling you for hours. I have been WORRIED SICK. WHAT IS GOING ON?”

“Lucy.” 

“WHAT?”

“Jessica is alive. Somehow, we changed history, and...she’s alive again.”

The world was growing darker, colder by the minute. Shrinking around her. But maybe that was just the bunker. Or the fact that Lucy had forgotten how to breathe. She sank down onto the nearest cot. Forced a smile. “That’s….” Took a breath. “I don’t...how is that possible?”

“I don’t know. She texted me.” Wyatt’s voice sounded surprisingly normal. Calm. Maybe even a little bit...excited? “I step off the lifeboat and I get a text from my dead wife. It’s….”

In that moment, Lucy made a decision to disconnect herself emotionally, focus on the facts. Science. Time travel. Facts that used to sound insane but were now commonplace. Still infinitely preferable to dealing with the surge of emotions racing through her body.

“I don’t understand, did we change something...do something in history that brought her back?”

“I don’t know, but she’s real, Lucy.” This time, the relief in Wyatt’s voice was much clearer. Like he wasn’t bothering to hide it anymore. Or maybe he never had, and Lucy was just blocking it out, trying to protect herself. Which was selfish. She knew that. And yet. “...Her hair is a little different - it’s shorter - but her eyes are the same. The last time I saw those eyes, she was...dead. Look apparently, she has lived through six years that I know nothing about. I guess...I wasn’t a good husband or something, and I….”

Lucy fell sideways on the bed, letting her body fully detach from reality. It was ludicrous how quickly a person could lapse back into old habits, old positions. Like the way Wyatt talked about his wife with so much attention to detail, so much love, even over the phone, even talking about a woman he’d technically never met - at least, not this version of him - even talking to a woman he’d been inside less than twelve hours earlier. All those factors didn’t seem to matter. And just like Wyatt, Lucy felt herself regressing - almost effortlessly - into the person she’d been, before all this madness started. A good listener, easy to talk to, supportive, never upset. A doormat. A friend, and nothing more. Not a lover, or even a romantic rival. Someone easy to overlook and take for granted. Someone to use and discard. Someone who always said the right thing, or at least, what everyone else wanted to hear.

“Well, now you have time to...change all that.” Her smile felt forced. She wondered if it sounded as forced as it felt. But if Wyatt noticed, he didn’t seem to care. “Don’t you?”

“Yeah.” A single syllable, a sigh of relief, of absolution. Like he’d been waiting for her permission, or not. Again with the wishful thinking. Silly Lucy. Stupid Lucy.

“Lucy...I’m so sorry.” The words sounded empty, but they landed hard.

“Wyatt. I’m thrilled for you.” Empty words, pushed through lungs that burned, into a mouth that tasted like ash. 

“Yeah, but you and me….”

“She’s your wife, and you love her. This is everything you’ve wanted. Everything you’ve been hoping for.”

That much was abundantly clear. Clearer than anything she’d ever been able to get from Wyatt. Always, she’d found him so mysterious, so impossible to figure out. But in the end, he had just been saving himself for Jessica. Everything he was, packaged away and sealed tightly, waiting for the day his one true love would return. And now she had. 

“This is...this is a good thing. And now that Jessica’s back….” Now that Jessica is back. What now? But she didn’t have a chance to make up a pretty sounding lie.

“Oh, I almost forgot why you called. Is everything okay? Did the mother ship jump?”

Wyatt jumped so effortlessly back into his role as the team soldier. That’s right. They were back to being coworkers now. She was the historian, and he was the soldier. That’s all they were.

Tears were forming at the back of Lucy’s eyes, and they were starting to burn. She needed to get off the phone, and do it soon. “No. Everything’s fine here, just...focus on figuring things out with Jessica, and take whatever time you need. Okay?”

“I’m sorry,” Wyatt said again. But this time it sounded more dutiful, less personal. Lucy was left wondering (again) whether he was apologizing for what had happened between them, or for letting her think it meant more than it did, or for loving his wife more than he ever could have loved her, or for not returning her calls. Or maybe he was just the soldier, apologizing to the historian for missing work that day. 

“Don’t be.” Lucy forced another smile. Historians didn’t cry. What was the point? All the damage that could be done had already been done. Unless you had a time machine. And that, as it turned out, only made things more complicated than before. 

When Lucy returned to the others, she was mostly numb. “Wyatt’s not coming.”

Their reactions to Jessica being alive were all over the board, forcing Lucy to relive her own shock, disappointment, and shame all over again. But then, when Rufus explained that Rittenhouse might be responsible for bringing back Wyatt’s wife, she felt a tiny inkling of hope. Followed by another sharp, violent stab of shame. Was it possible that some part of her, even a tiny part, hoped that it would all turn out to be a trick? That somehow, the ending hadn’t yet been written, and she and Wyatt had another chance to be together? Maybe Wyatt and Jessica wouldn’t work out, and she would be there, waiting….

The second her mind unraveled the thought, Lucy began to hate herself for having it. Once again, she was thinking like a desperate, pathetic loser. Someone who could never be a first choice, but would settle for - and even hope for - being someone’s second, or even last, option. It wasn’t the person she wanted to be, and yet, she could feel herself struggling against that small, hopeless voice that always plagued her when she dared to stand up for herself. It sounded like her mother and every academic advisor she’d ever had rolled up into one prolonged lecture: nobody will respect you if you don’t learn to pick your battles, Lucy, nobody likes a needy woman, you’re so demanding, stop being so high-maintenance Lucy, you’re being unrealistic, you’re being selfish, you’re acting like your sister, you’ll never get your precious sister back, no matter what you do, spoiled little princess…..

***

Flynn sat back and watched the fireworks. He’d only been in this dank little bunker a few hours, and already felt bored out of his mind. More bored than he’d been in prison. At least there, random Rittenhouse agents tried to kill him every few days. And failed. Which was entertaining, in a way.

But now, things were about to get much more interesting. Sitting alone at a table, reading one of Lucy’s many history texts - surprisingly funny, even if it was about the Bubonic Plague - Flynn watched as Lucy return from her latest attempt to contact Wyatt. He listened as she told them all what he’d already suspected, that Wyatt had selfishly run off in pursuit of his own happy ending, without a single care for the team he’d supposedly sworn to protect with his life. Big surprise there. If Flynn had a dollar for every time he’d watched Wyatt go rogue and abandon his team, he’d have enough to buy several more of Lucy’s textbooks--even overpriced as they were. Maybe he could convince someone in the past to socialize education in the United States, so that future students of Lucy’s and other professors wouldn’t have to pay $37.99 for a small paperback that would appear in two questions on a single test, then never be brought up again.

Perusing the back of the book, Flynn tried to ignore the deflated quality of Lucy’s voice, which had always sounded much more animated when she was threatening him. Was it his imagination, or did she always seem to talk more softly and slouch around other people? The way she boldly made excuses for Wyatt, while almost apologizing to Denise, like it was her fault he was a shit security leader. It didn’t make sense. But then, Flynn had never understood why everyone treated that milksop farm boy like he was some kind of badass. If anyone should be apologizing, it should be Wyatt. But as usual, he was not around when he was needed. In this case, luckily, he was not actually needed.

Flynn knew it was only a matter of time before they all came to the same conclusion: Wyatt was out, and Flynn was in.

Unsurprisingly, Lucy was the first one to stand up in his favor. “Why do we have him if we aren’t going to use him?”

“We’re using him for intel,” Denise reminded her. “Not muscle.”

Flynn sensed that this was his moment to try making nice. “Oh, come on guys!” He stood up and gestured in what he hoped was a friendly way, to offset his large and intimidating presence. “Fighting the good fight through time is kind of my wheelhouse. And I know all about Salem.”

Rufus snorted. “Burn a couple of witches in your day?”  
Flynn frowned at his ignorance. “Witches weren’t burned in Salem, they were hanged. Of the accused, only those who refused to confess were executed, and it all came to a head on the 22nd, when the final victims were all hanged by the same tree, one by one.”

Surely, Flynn had assumed, Rufus of all people would not be flippant about the existence of a society that did not allow for due process, that marked certain groups as “other” and executed them without a thought for their basic human rights, while the majority of their fellow citizens looked on? But maybe people were as blind to the parallels of history as they were each others’ motives. To Flynn, it was quite clear that the women in the room were all thinking of times in their lives when someone had called them something similar to a witch, just for speaking out or daring to hope for a life more than what society wanted to grant them. What would it be like for his mother, he often wondered, if she had been born even ten years earlier than she had? As difficult as it had been for her to work her way up into a position of relative respect in a male-dominated field, imagine how much worse it was in a time where wanting to leave the home and do any sort of work was grounds for a woman to be labeled radical and put on trial?

Lucy looked at the floor. “He’s right, that’s all true.”

Flynn rolled his eyes as the team argued, but was surprised to hear Lucy respond with a bit of steel in her voice, when Denise called him a killer.

“He’s a time traveling killer. And we share the same enemy. I mean, come on, you can’t deny that Flynn has been...effective.”

Lucy glanced in his direction, and he suddenly felt sheepish. 

“Look, we are going to Colonial England. A woman and a black man should travel with someone who has more…”

Flynn bit his lip, to stop himself from interjecting something rude. This wasn’t a good time. Even if it was an excellent joke. 

“...Access.”

Flynn almost laughed at the emphasis she placed on that word. If he didn’t know better, he would have guessed that Lucy meant the same thing he was thinking, just used another word. “I couldn’t agree more.”

Lucy was not amused. She stared him down. “I need to know that I can trust you on this. Can I?”

“No,” Rufus said. “The answer is no. You cannot trust him.”

But Lucy didn’t break eye contact. Her spine straightened, and her voice seemed to be getting stronger the longer she stood up to him. And for him. “Can I?”

Flynn nodded yes, and meant it.

“Okay.”

It only took about two hours before Lucy was obviously regretting her decision. Of course, Flynn could have been a bit more easy on her. But for some reason, he could not help himself from toying with the bounds of her patience along the trip, just to see how she would react.

Or maybe it was because every time he stopped bothering her, she seemed to fold into herself and grow silent, dwelling someplace that clearly caused her pain. Pale and dull-eyed, she seemed to forget where she was, and maybe even who she was, in those moments. By contrast, when Flynn asked an intentionally stupid question about history, or “accidentally” stepped on the hem of her dress, or introduced himself to people as her husband, the color came back into her face, and her eyes flashed. It was much more interesting seeing her livid than lethargic. Not to mention fun.

They were strolling down a long dirt lane, and Flynn was enjoying watching Lucy talk about the history of the Salem witch trials, when he noticed a shadow pass over her face. “You know, you’re not as fearful as I remember. All that time alone with Rittenhouse toughened you up?” She glared, and he took it as a sign to continue. “Because if you think that’s rough, try six months in solitary. You at least had some people to talk to.”

“You’re right,” she replied in monotone, eyes flat. “My mother and I had some amusing heart to hearts while I was her prisoner.”

Clearly, Lucy was becoming immune to his verbal stimuli. She wasn’t rising to meet his banter like before, sinking instead more deeply into this uncharacteristic (and undoubtedly Wyatt-related) depression. Flynn decided it was time to kick his strategy up a notch. 

When they went into Franklin’s accuser’s house, he immediately knew there was going to be a problem. Puritan sensibilities were the antithesis of everything he stood for. The simpering, God-fearing, buttoned-up, hypocritical, buckle-wearing, sex-shaming blandness of it all. The pacifist lifestyle, which ironically - but not surprisingly - led to incredible violence against those most innocent, while those most qualified to prevent injustice stood by and wrung their hands, citing God as their reason for doing nothing. It made him sick. But mostly, it made him angry.

More angry than usual, in fact.

As if to perfectly illustrate the ridiculousness of it all, the weasel-like man standing before him proudly proclaimed, “I haven’t touched a gun in years. I’m a God-fearing man.”  
Of course, it was a lie. Just like the idea that fear of God was something to brag about. Flynn knew better than most: the man who should truly fear God is the man who commits atrocities in his name. It was one of the few ways Flynn had not yet sinned, because he never once blamed God for the horrible things he’d done. And he never expected his forgiveness. 

Apparently, Lucy wasn’t having it, either. “Cut the crap, Bathsheba.” 

She then proceeded to light into the puritan woman with facts about her pathetically small life, all the people she’d harmed with the lies she had told, all for her own small, selfish reasons. 

“You might have everyone else in Salem fooled, but you don’t fool me.” And there she was again, the Lucy he’d grown to respect and actually kind of like throughout his travels. Finally.

When the shrew’s husband advanced toward Lucy to protect his wife’s honor - and Flynn used that term very lightly - he took a step to put himself between them. His first instinct was to hit the man, which he’d wanted to do since he walked in the door, if he was being honest. But, at the last second, he remembered why he was there. And, more importantly, who he was with.

“You will not speak to us in this manner.”

“We will speak how we speak,” he said instead, the threat in his voice very clear.

The man blustered. Flynn bit back a sigh. He glanced toward Lucy, and found her looking back at him, with a strangely calm expression on her face. In that moment, an entire conversation passed between them, using only their eyes.

Somehow, Flynn knew that Lucy knew exactly what he was thinking. She knew what he wanted to do, and didn’t mind that it wasn’t part of the plan, or really even the right thing to do. But it was the simplest thing. On that much, they agreed. What was the word she used for him? Effective. Not fancy, but it got the job done. 

With Lucy’s permission, Flynn quickly and effectively flung the man across the room.

They had the information they needed a few seconds later. Lucy, while not happy, did not seem all that sad about it. Flynn decided to count it as a small victory.

***

“You’re not like the other women, and that makes people uncomfortable. So they mock you, and tell you you’re stupid. But you refuse to change. And that makes people mad, so they attack you. They call you evil.”

“They call you a witch,” Abby said softly.

Lucy looked around the small, cramped cell, at the nine other women who were condemned to die, simply for being “other” than what their society expected them to be. Mothers, wives, homemakers, content to stay in their place, never asking for more than what a man deigned to give them. Those women were safe, or so they’d been told. But looking around, Lucy saw nine examples of women who dared to want even one special thing for themselves. A hobby, a fancy, a trade, an education, a sense of wonder in the world around them, even the smallest step outside what was accepted could be grounds for losing everything, for having their very lives taken away. And she was about to become the tenth, simply for daring to change what had been written. 

Also, if she was being honest, Lucy blamed herself for much more than her choice to travel through time. If only she hadn’t worshipped her mother so blindly throughout her life, maybe she would have seen her for what she truly was: a cold, selfish woman who believed that monsters deserved to run the world. If only she hadn’t let herself fall for Wyatt, she wouldn’t have had her heart broken. Wouldn’t have been walking around feeling sorry for herself during this entire mission, which blinded her to their surroundings, allowing her and Rufus to wander right into her mother’s trap. Surely, she was smarter than these decisions, wasn’t she? Surely, she was destined to do more, be better than this. Then again, so was Abby Franklin. And look where they both found themselves now. 

In that moment, for some ridiculous reason, Lucy found herself thinking about Garcia Flynn. Like her, he’d lost almost everything. He’d been played by Rittenhouse, betrayed by everyone he ever trusted - even those like Emma, who he’d only trusted for a short time. She imagined him sitting in his cell, in solitary, which he’d joked about only a few hours before. She wondered if he ever let himself cry in prison, or if he spent the entire time pacing and simmering with rage, planning his next move. Somehow, she couldn’t imagine the first scenario. But the second...yeah, that sounded like a much more productive way to deal with this situation. Lucy decided to think like Flynn, and fuck everyone else’s opinion. Even her own. Especially when her own opinion currently was to feel bad for herself, instead of doing something about it. 

Shaking her head, Lucy continued, “So you refuse to confess to being something you’re not,” she said. “That’s brave. And I’m proud to be in your company.”

That was when her goddamn mother showed up.

***

The Pope house was only Flynn’s first stop on the Armament Scavenger Hunt of 1692. While the annoying puritan couple were out in their garden, he ransacked the place, starting in the parlor. Unfortunately, Mr. Pope must have heard the commotion, because he came barging in before Flynn could find the rifle he was looking for.

“What are you doing here? What have you done to our home?”

No matter, this way would be quicker. Flynn advanced. “I could see it in your eyes. You have a rifle here. Where is it?”

“Get out of here.”

“Where is the rifle?”

Flynn watched as the small, ferret-like man in a starched collar mustered up his courage. Any day now. He swung at Flynn, landing a feeble blow. 

Without further ado, Flynn grabbed Pope and proceeded to beat him, waiting for the inevitable--

“Stop right there.” The confidence in Mrs. Pope’s voice could only be a result of her being armed. Flynn smirked and silently gave himself a point.

“I knew it.” With that, he tossed Mr. Pope and kicked a chair into Mrs. Pope’s skirts, knowing she’d stumble from listening to Lucy complain about how hard it was for women in this period to walk around with all that fabric in the way. Ignoring her gasp of surprise, he plucked the rifle out of her shrewish, bigoted hands.

“Finally.”

Two miles down the lane and up a small ridge, Flynn came across another dwelling that looked promising. It was rougher in construction, almost like a log cabin. Stowing his new rifle in the hollow of a nearby tree, he draped his leather jacket over a branch and got to work breaking into the place. Nobody was around, so he didn’t bother being quiet. If his recollection of history was correct, he only had about another hour and a half before those accused of witchcraft - including Lucy and Rufus - would be ushered to the tree for sentencing. The whole mockery of justice would last only a few minutes, and then the hangings would start. One by one, the women of Salem (and a few men who got in the way) would be led to their deaths. Not quick, and definitely not painless. The people of the town would gather around, crossing themselves righteously and whispering about God’s will being done, while secretly delighting in the spectacle of watching their neighbors die at the hands of religious zealots. Just another Tuesday in Salem.

And people called him a monster.

Luckily, the person who lived in this cottage was a sportsman and a collector. There was a rifle over the fireplace, and two pistols in a case underneath the bed. Unluckily, most of the guns in this time only had a single shot, so he would need a few more weapons if he was going to save Lucy. And Rufus. And the others. While he was at it, he made a mental note to tell Agent Christopher exactly what a pain in the ass it was to gather enough firepower to replace a single handgun from the future. If he was late coming to the rescue and a few people died as a result, well, it would serve her right.

As night fell, Flynn picked his way through the forest, searching for a place to store his arsenal and stage his attack. He watched as torch-carrying villagers assembled around the accused, and waited for the right moment. Because he had so few bullets, and nobody to help him reload, he needed to time things exactly right.

When Abby Franklin was led to the gallows, Flynn searched for Lucy’s face in the line of those who were next. She seemed surprisingly unafraid. That was good. Deep down, he knew her well enough to guess what she would do when things got ugly. She would try to help the others, rather than running away and saving herself. Which meant it would be up to him to keep an eye on her, and watch her back. 

Sure enough, when the bullets started to fly and the villagers scattered, Lucy went straight for Abby. Flynn watched as Rufus and Lucy struggled to free her, as one of the judges advanced on them and swiped at Lucy from behind, like the coward he was. Flynn shot him in the chest, but not before he saw Lucy fall to the ground. 

For a moment, his breath caught, and all he could hear was the sound of his own pulse. But then Lucy looked up, directly at him, and he knew she wasn’t badly hurt. Flynn found himself thanking God, ironically.

Then he was off running, killing Puritans, like the monster he was.

***

Back in the lifeboat, Lucy struggled to buckle her harness, wincing as the belt brushed up against the gash in her arm. But on some level, she welcomed the pain. It reminded her that she was still alive, that she still existed. That today, at least, she had chosen to fight, instead of lying down and being a doormat for her mother, or her father, or her great-grandfather, or Wy--or anyone else to walk over. There was a small kind of comfort in that feeling. Of being dangerous, in a way, even if only because she’d managed to survive against such impossible odds.

Without asking or being asked, Flynn reached forward to help her. “Those women today were all supposed to die. Pretty big change you’re willing to make to history, huh?”

“It’s not what I’m willing to do,” she told him. “It’s what I’m not willing to do. I can’t sit back and watch innocent people die anymore. To hell with what’s meant to happen. And to hell with my mother.”

“You’re nothing like her.” Flynn’s eyes met hers, and there was a sudden intensity between them, almost like he was daring her to look away. “You know?”

“Yeah,” she said, rising to his challenge. “I know.”

***

Flynn was happy to see the change in Lucy. But it only made him that much angrier later, when he had to watch her wilt at the sight of Wyatt and his wife waiting for them in the bunker. In that moment, Flynn found that he wanted to kill Wyatt with his bare hands, more than ever.

Pushing past Rufus, he put his arm around Lucy and guided her from where she stood, shocked and bleeding, at the top of the stairs. He bit his tongue, but couldn’t avoid shooting a disgusted glance in Wyatt’s direction as they passed. How was he still the bad guy in this situation, with such an obvious buffoon in the mix? It really was frustrating at times.

Lucy didn’t say a single word to him the entire way to the infirmary. Luckily, Agent Christopher had given Flynn the nickel tour of the bunker the day before. Or was it the same day? Flynn never could tell anymore. Inside the cramped and wildly outdated medical facility, Flynn steered her to sit down on a stack of cardboard boxes labeled simply: SUPPLIES. 

Leaving the shell-shocked historian to stare into space, Flynn shed his leather coat, which was now quite filthy from rolling around in the 1692 mud, and rolled up his sleeves. He washed his hands in the tiny sink and set about rummaging in the cupboards for a suture kit, or failing that, some disinfectant and a first aid kit with maybe some butterfly bandages. The same kind he once used on his daughter when she would fall off her bike and skin her knee. Grimacing, Flynn shook his head. It never helped to think of such things. Not anymore. Instead, he busied himself gathering supplies for today’s disaster and today’s patient.

Turning back to her with items in hand, Flynn realized that he was going to have to cut away part of Lucy’s sleeve in order to see the extent of the damage. With any luck, the thick wool would have slowed the blade and the cut wouldn’t be as deep as it seemed. But then, luck wasn’t a theme of the day. Still, maybe it was about to change.

Without asking permission, Flynn began pulling at the neckline of her dress, trying to separate the fabric from her skin enough to slide the scissors inside. That was when Lucy suddenly seemed to awaken to her surroundings, flinching away from Flynn’s touch. “Ouch! Stop that!”

Flynn frowned down at her. “I can’t stop, not if you don’t want to die of dysentery.” 

“Dysentery,” she scoffed up at him. “I think you mean infection. Unless, of course, you were filling our canteen with contaminated water. Isn’t that kind of a major part of your soldier training, or whatever? How to find drinkable water?”

Straight from zombie mode into fight mode. Flynn smiled. This was more like it.

“Ah, see, but I didn’t have soldier training,” Flynn told her, as he tugged harder, easily fending off her feeble attempts to stop him as he cut away the bloody fabric. “I had super-secret spy training. They don’t teach you how to find clean water yourself. Instead, they just tell you to find someone else that has clean water. Then, you kill them and take it.”

Holding his breath, Flynn waited to see if his dark humor would shock and offend her. But she only smirked and made a little snorting noise through her nose. It was very cute.

“Besides,” he continued, swabbing the cut on her shoulder. “Letting you correct my terminology is one of the few pleasures you have left. If I took that away from you, how would you survive?”

Ironically, that was the joke that made Lucy start to cry. Not the one about murdering people for potable water, but the jab about how she was a know-it-all. Slumping forward, Lucy buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

“Damn it,” Flynn muttered, crouching down until his face was almost level with hers. “I’m sorry, Lucy. I was just trying to provoke you, for a distraction from the pain.”

With that, the sobs grew more pronounced, and Lucy’s shoulders shook violently from the effort of quieting them. Flynn worried that she was going to make her knife wound bleed even more if she didn’t stop. He didn’t know how to help, except to keep talking, and try to draw her out so she wouldn’t fall even deeper into her own sadness.

Straightening up to put his arms around her from behind, careful not to touch her injury, Flynn rocked her gently back and forth. 

“Listen, Lucy, I can see now that you’re suffering from a different kind of pain. It’s not just the fact that you were stabbed by an ignorant, Puritan asshole, is it?”

Lucy didn’t answer, but sobbed in little, hiccuping breaths.

“Here’s the thing about pain, though. No matter what kind of pain...it demands to be felt. Pain can either be poison, or it can be fuel. But you can’t just get rid of it, you have to learn how to use it. That way, it’s a tool, and not a weakness.”

Finally, her sobs slowed, and her breathing quieted. Turning her head, Lucy blinked up at him through her tears. “Did you...did you just quote John Green?”

Damn, busted. It was one thing to joke about going to prison and being in solitary, but he didn’t want to brag about how he’d bribed the guards to bring him books, and taught them curse words in other languages in exchange. Flynn had always loved books, of all kinds. But especially the ones about brave kids who took down corrupt governments, or survived terminal illnesses, or defeated armies. That would ruin his badass reputation, especially if Rufus and Wyatt found out. But somehow, he didn’t mind Lucy knowing.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ll keep your secret, if you will keep mine.”

With their faces so close, it was hard not to feel the intimacy of that shared moment, but Flynn didn’t want to pull away until he felt like she was ready. After a few seconds, Lucy took a deep breath and sat up straighter.

“It’s a deal,” she said.

“Excellent.” Flynn stepped away, dropping his arms and going back to pretending he was purely being helpful. Just a team member, professionally bandaging up a fellow team member. A spy being useful to a historian. Nothing more.

And certainly nothing less.

Chapter Three: The Preston Curse

Lucy wasn’t sure what hurt more, her head or her arm. Her dreams were hectic and confusing, laced with fear and regret. Sometimes her mother was there, singing a familiar lullaby as she reached down to stab her daughter in the gut. Other times, it was Wyatt, turning away from her as she bled, or running far in front of her. Always away, never toward. Among it all, there was a deep voice, whispering soft words she couldn’t understand. Large, warm hands touched her face as she struggled to rise. And a smell she couldn’t quite place, strange spices mixed with something sweet and vaguely metallic.

Eventually, she woke to Jiya’s face, staring down at her in concern.

When Jiya explained she’d been fighting off an infection for several days, the dreams started to make sense. Fever dreams were always supposed to be weird, right? Add that on top of actual memories from time traveling, her impossibly complicated family dynamic, Flynn’s presence on the team after he’d been their enemy for so long, and also there was that whole accidental adultery thing….

Lucy cringed when Jiya brought up Wyatt. It hurt twice, because of the knife wound. On some level, Lucy knew it was going to take a lot longer to heal than the physical pain. What was that thing Flynn had said? Pain can be a poison. But it can also be fuel.

With that thought in mind, Lucy forced herself out of bed, in spite of Jiya’s warnings. She would take it slowly, but she would move on. She would get past this, even if it killed her. Lucy had been through hell and back, and there was only more hell to come. That much she knew, from personal experience. Things could always get worse. And they usually did, before they got better.

Of course, in the kitchen, Lucy ran straight into Jessica. Obviously, she was going to have to tread around the bunker much more carefully in the future.

As they talked, casually on Jessica’s part and awkwardly on Lucy’s, she realized that in any other reality, they would likely have been friends. Not close friends, by any means, but certainly on friendly terms. Just as Lucy was on a first name basis with Denise’s wife, but didn’t know much about her personally, aside from her relation to a member of their team. On some level, Lucy envied Jessica. Okay, on more than one level. Many levels. What would it be like to have a second chance with Wyatt, after knowing him only one way, as someone who had always shut her out of his thoughts and feelings? One day, he just walks back into her life, alive and open and ready to fully commit. But only, ironically, because he knew firsthand what it was like to lose her forever? What would that be like, Lucy wondered, knowing that the person you loved couldn’t imagine life without you? That a part of them had died when you did, and then be reborn out of sheer hope?

The thought of it all made tears prick at the corners of her eyes, and she passed it off as pain and excused herself.

That was when the lifeboat returned, and Wyatt and Rufus dragged an unconscious boy out of the machine. But no Flynn. In spite of her lethargy and exhaustion, Lucy felt a pang of anxiety, followed by a swell of anger. How could they have left him behind? Her thoughts for Flynn were quickly set aside though, when she realized who they carried. 

John F. Kennedy. John. Effing. Kennedy!? What were those idiots thinking?

Dodging bullets, Flynn ran toward the lifeboat, just in time to watch it disappear from existence.

“Damn it,” he muttered, dropping to the ground and rolling into a firing position. Two shots into the chest, and one in the head. Two Rittenhouse sleeper agents down, at least one more to go. That they knew about. Doubling back, Flynn relieved the dead agent of his weapons and ammo, then took off into the woods. He had no idea how long he would be stuck here, but his odds of survival went up with every Rittenhouse agent he killed. That was now his number one priority.

Planning was something Flynn had always excelled at, but it was a damn sight more difficult when you had to account for more players than yourself. Typical Wyatt. Why stick to the plan, when you could go rogue and play the hero? No big deal, just kidnap the teen-aged, future United States president and take him into the future, what could go wrong? 

A gunshot rang out behind him, and Flynn hit the dirt behind a cluster of trees, biding his time as he checked that his weapons were ready. He breathed quietly, waiting for any telltale sign that his enemy was advancing. But nothing came. 

Knowing that the other guy - or guys - probably had similar training to his, Flynn carefully backed up into the trees and did his best to melt into the foliage. If this was to be a stalemate, he would wait it out until the sun went down. The only thing that made it difficult was thinking about how badly the other members of his “team” might be botching history, and the future, while he waited.

As the sun began to set, Flynn watched the shadows crawl in front of him, darkening as they grew. Curling tendrils of dusk wrapped around him like a cloak of invisibility, while a cool breeze ruffled his hair. Closing his eyes, he imagined dark waves of strawberry-scented hair falling around him while slim, cool fingers caressed his skin. Flynn thought of her often, during moments of peril, and in his quiet moments, and while he slept...more often than he’d like to admit. He imagined her saying his name with a laugh, on a sigh, whispered into his mouth as they lay together in the dark….

From behind him, the muffled crack of a broken twig. A sudden intake of breath. Eyes open, gun ready, Flynn turned and fired between heartbeats, twice. Three times. Two in the chest, one in the head. The Rittenhouse agent didn’t even have time to react. Not even a groan, before he died. Good riddance, as they saying went.

Rising into a crouch, Flynn waited another few moments to make sure there was no one else. Then he dusted off his pants, collected the last agent’s weapons, and began the hike back to where the lifeboat would supposedly, hopefully, return in a few hours. Or days.

Though it hadn’t been the best day so far, Flynn decided it was far from the worst. After all, he knew that Lucy - at least - was safe and back in the bunker. Benched for her injury, where nobody (not even Wyatt) could put her in danger. He wondered idly if she was still sleeping, deeply and fitfully, the way she had been just before he left. Was she in pain? Was she afraid? It was hard for him to watch her suffer, especially when he could do nothing to take that pain away. He already blamed himself for not taking better care of her knife wound, that first night when they came back from Salem, because clearly he had missed disinfecting some antique germ or other that was making Lucy sick. Even if Jiya assured him that, according to WebMD, infections were extremely common for people with stab wounds, even in modern day. 

Flynn wasn’t sure if he agreed with her reasoning, or her sources. Lucy was so strong in so many ways, but her body had gone through a lot in her life. Little did she know how much he’d spared her from already, how many times she’d almost lost that life. How many times he’d saved her, only to let her believe she was unlucky.

The night of her car accident, sophomore year of college, he’d gotten to the river just in time. The details in her journal were hazy, so he’d known she wouldn’t remember him. But he didn't’ account for the fact that in her post-traumatic remembrance, she would also have gotten the time and place a little wrong. By the time they would pull her car from the river, it had drifted almost a mile south from where she initially went in. Flynn had raced back and forth, looking for marks on the side of the road. If it wasn’t for the slight glow of headlights underwater, just a flicker of a second before the crappy little Toyota’s electrical system died, he might have missed her. When he pulled her out of the car, she wasn't’ breathing. His heart had stopped along with hers, as he wondered if time had finally beaten him for good. It had almost killed him to leave her before seeing her eyes open, before seeing for himself that she was okay.

Not even a month after that, Flynn had to go back again and save Lucy from a plane crash, because something he’d changed in 1918 England inexplicably made her decide to take a summer internship at Oxford. He sabotaged the plane on the ground, and according to Lucy’s diary, it turned out that the elderly woman who sat next to her during the two hours they spent on the runway ended up changing her mind about staying in California and writing her first book, about Women's’ Suffrage. Flynn figured it didn’t matter that much which books she wrote in what order, as long as she survived to write them.

Then there was the birthday party at the beach when she was four. The tall man with the sunglasses and the funny looking shirt who asked her if she would help him find his puppy. Lucy very helpfully followed him into the shade under the boardwalk, only to find that an even taller man was waiting for them. Flynn sent Little Lucy to find her mom, and quietly made sure that the nameless stranger would never hurt Lucy. He would also never hurt any other child, ever again.

Frowning deeply at the memory, Flynn made his way to the clearing where the lifeboat had first landed, and circled it several times, looking for the best place to stand watch and defend against any additional Rittenhouse who might come looking for him while he waited. He settled on a wedge between two large rocks, which had good cover and visibility but was terribly uncomfortable. Not to mention cold. Cursing Wyatt and Rufus once more for good measure, he hunkered down with his little cache of guns and tried to think warm thoughts.

One of his favorite stories as a child was the one his Baka had told him about Baba Yaga and the Monsters. Every child was afraid of Baba Yaga, she said, and they should be. The old hag was tricky and cruel, with a short temper, who should never be trifled with. However, good children didn’t need to be afraid, as long as they respected her and didn’t take her name in vain or joke about summoning her with their friends as a game. The reason Baba Yaga got so mad about that, Baka said, is because there was an old legend that a child who was ever truly in danger from a real monster - not the kind you read about in books, or the kind that lives under your bed, but the kind who hurts innocent children and takes away their innocence - that child can ask for Baba Yaga’s help, and she will gladly appear and disembowel the monster before their eyes, so they would know without a shadow of a doubt that the monster could never ever hurt them again. And if that happened, Baba Yaga would ask for nothing in return, because she loves eating monsters even more than she loves snacking on naughty children.

True, his Baka was a bit off in her later years, and she probably shouldn’t have been so graphic in the telling. But even then, Flynn had understood the moral of that story. Some monsters were called that because they had a bad reputation, like Baba Yaga, but maybe it was because they just didn’t fit in, or didn’t follow the rules, or because they were a little cranky. Misunderstood monsters, who in their hearts, only really wanted to be left alone or do what they thought was right. Then, there were the true monsters. The ones who almost never get called by their true names. Instead of ugly old crones, they often had smiling faces and straight, white teeth. 

These monsters wore suits. They held important jobs. Senators, bankers, school teachers, pastors, presidents. Jobs that allowed them to prey on those who were helpless while at the same time being congratulated by the world for being so good. Those monsters might be able to pass for human, but they did not deserve the label. Monsters like Adolf Hitler, and J. Marion Sims, and Charles Cullen, and H.H. Holmes...and everyone involved with Rittenhouse, they did not even deserve to be in the same category as fictional villains like Baba Yaga. But maybe he did. Maybe, in some twisted way, Flynn had grown up into the same kind of monster he was fascinated by as a child. The kind of monster who only preyed upon other monsters.

Did that make him better, or worse? Honestly, at this point, Flynn had no idea. All he knew was that he would do anything in his power, anything, even the most unthinkable thing, to protect the things he cared about. And whether she knew it or not, whether he fully understood why or not, whether it was right, or wrong, or...something else impossible to define...Flynn cared about Lucy.

Why else would he be sitting between two freezing rocks on the dirty ground in 1934, waiting for two idiots he could barely stand to come pick his ass up in a time machine, after abandoning him to kidnap a future president, after murdering several people in cold blood, and still be only kind of annoyed, but mostly, really just looking forward to getting back to 2018 so he could see her again, and make sure that she was okay?

It wasn’t love, of course. As anyone who knows anything will tell you, monsters cannot fall in love. But maybe it was something close.

Back in the bunker, Flynn couldn’t wait to get out of his clothes. After exhibiting what he thought was an impressive level of self-control by not shooting Wyatt for taking nine hours to come back with JFK, or telling Agent Christopher to shove her government mandate, or anything else that might cause Lucy to be upset with him. Because he really needed to see her smile, after the day he’d just had.

Unfortunately, the first thing he saw after getting out of his shower and changing clothes, was Lucy and Wyatt. Once again, Wyatt was hurting her, like the bumbling, wannabe do-gooder fool he was. Always apologizing, but never for the right thing. Thanking Lucy for helping him get his wife back, when he should have been falling at her feet and begging her forgiveness for what he had put her through. And thanking her for existing, and for deigning to ever look in his direction in the first place. Flynn hung back, wanting to intervene, but knowing better. Couldn’t Lucy see that she deserved so much more than she had ever been willing to imagine for herself? Even in the diary, it drove him crazy to hear her talk about everyone else’s feelings like they were tangible things. Meanwhile, she always talked about her own needs and desires like they were these impossible dreams, not even real enough to bother putting into words.

Stalking back to his room, Flynn waited until Wyatt finished disappointing Lucy, again. Until Lucy finished telling him it was okay, again. Trying to make others feel better, while she was literally wounded and suffering. Again. Gritting his teeth, he waited until he heard the sound of a door closing, and the soft shuffling of Lucy’s slippered feet down the hall, toward the lounge. He waited until he heard the sound of the television, and then he made a decision.

The last thing he wanted was to invade her space, but he also couldn’t possibly let her be alone. Maybe it was more for him than it was for her, but he needed to watch over Lucy until she grew strong again. And she would get stronger. That much he knew. He’d read all about it, and even seen it for himself. 

Flynn made his way to the kitchen and took two beers from the fridge. He held his breath as he sat down next to Lucy, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t flinch away or be upset by his presence. If his being there made her uncomfortable in any possible way, he would leave. Period. She accepted the drink he offered, and took a sip. That was a good first step, he decided.

Quietly, they sat and watched together for a long time. Flynn vaguely remembered the movie, but mostly it was him listening to Lucy’s breathing to ensure it was even, and not ragged with any pain, or caught up like she was upset. Occasionally, he stole sideways glances at her, but she remained like a statue. Not smiling at the cute parts, or laughing at the funny parts, or even crying at the sad parts. Flynn tried to become even more still by comparison. He was almost afraid to shift his weight and disturb her. 

But then, he felt something poke his side. He turned his head to see Lucy holding out her empty beer bottle toward him, shaking it lightly, in the wordless and universal way of someone who wants to be brought another drink. She didn’t say please, but he understood. Flynn smiled.

“Same?”

She nodded, just once.

“As you wish,” he said, quickly rising to bring her another. 

As he sat down and handed Lucy the full, cold bottle, he felt concern for a moment that he’d taken up too much space. But no, she had moved to cover more of the couch, pulling her legs up and leaning toward him slightly. Not daring to take advantage, Flynn leaned back and put his hands in the pockets of his sweater.

A few minutes later, she leaned back into his arm. Flynn kept his eyes steadily ahead and did not change his expression, not even when she let out a sigh and let her head drop onto his shoulder. Not even when he caught a whiff of her strawberry shampoo, or when she finally smiled up at him for the first time all evening, or when her shoulders relaxed and he saw tears welling up in her eyes, during one of the sad parts. Something told him that it wasn’t the movie, but Flynn wasn’t going to comment. All that mattered was that she felt safe enough around him to let her guard down, and just let herself be. Even if it was just a few hours. Even if the position she was currently being in was making his arm fall asleep. 

Ironically, his current position was not unlike the one he’d been in just a few hours ago, in 1934. Once again, he was in between a rock and a hard place, but this time it was metaphorical. This time, Flynn was uncomfortable for very different reasons.

And yet, there was nowhere else he would rather be.

A/N: My plan is definitely to do as many original scenes as possible, but I do love the idea of giving a bit more insight into (IMO) what’s already happened/happening with these characters before I do, because this is my sneaky way of bringing you Lyatt shippers over to my side, Jedi-Mindtrick style. Muahahaha. Sorry, not sorry!

Chapter Four: Cry Me a (Delta) River

There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. There could be no going back. There was nothing left to do but move forward and pretend everything was fine.

Clutching her towel, Lucy forced a smile and turned the corner, just in time to catch the look of barely-suppressed glee on Wyatt’s face as he giggled with Rufus over his rekindled sex life.

“Hey Rufus, why don’t you and Jiya take our room,” she chirped, not daring to stop moving, or even take a breath in between. “I’ll be fine on the couch. Morning, Wyatt!”

She closed the bathroom door behind her, before her voice had a chance to falter. Before anyone began to suspect that she was inches away from breaking. Putting the chair in front of the door, she kicked it to make sure it stuck, maybe a little harder than necessary. Breathing shallowly, she went to the shower and turned the water on full force. The sound would hopefully cover, or at least muffle, her sobs while she showered. With any luck, if anyone heard the sounds, they would assume that it was just the result of someone trying to shower with a still healing stab wound on their shoulder. No shame in a little bit of whining over that kind of pain.

Still, Lucy wasn’t quite sure how she was going to handle the next mission, or the one after that. Especially if she had to sit in the Lifeboat across from Wyatt, remembering what it felt like to have him buckle her in safely, pretending it was just a simple courtesy, that it didn’t mean anything. Gone were those days of pretending her feelings were purely platonic. Honestly, she’d give anything to go back. To stop her and Wyatt before that night had happened, to remain friends. To let Wyatt go back to his wife, without any complications on either side. That way, she could pretend she’d never had any feelings for him, and everyone else would believe it. Even if she didn’t.

That way, at least, Lucy wouldn’t have to wonder what everyone was thinking, every time she was in the same room as Jessica. She wouldn’t have to second-guess every too-soft smile from every member of the team (except Flynn, of course) to figure out whether it was coming from a place of pity. She wouldn’t have to spend every moment of every day with her team, either trying to show them she was stronger than she was, or trying to convince herself that actually she wasn’t as weak as they all thought. Nobody would know anything, and nobody would care. She would give anything for just one more day when everything was normal. Or, at least, as normal as things could be when you were traveling through time. 

Sadly, Lucy had learned the hard way that some things could never be undone.

Just a few hours later, in 1936, Flynn returned to the hotel room to find Lucy standing alone, absently staring off into space.

She started at his presence, meeting him with a tense smile. “What did you do with the body?”

Flynn chuckled darkly. “You really want to know?”

The dull tone of her voice continued to bother him. The way she put on a front, tried to make everyone else feel comfortable - even though she was clearly the one being made to feel uncomfortable by everyone else, including and maybe especially by her so-called friends - was getting very hard to watch. Now that she’d had a bit of time to heal - outwardly and inwardly, he hoped - Flynn decided to get back to teasing her again. Maybe that way, she would finally figure out that it was easier not to give a damn what other people thought.

“Lucy, I think it’s time we levelled with each other.” Flynn paused to put on his jacket, watching as her face filled with trepidation. Ironically, she only seemed willing or able to defend her own feelings when he was the one attacking. “I’m way more fun on these missions than Wyatt, right?”

His unexpected, cheeky question earned him a rare laugh.

“You’re delusional,” Lucy said. Then she retreated to the other side of the room.

Flynn stayed where he was, but verbally advanced. “Must be uh, awkward between you.”

She kept her back toward him, as she lied, “It’s not awkward.”

Flynn shook his head. “Wyatt and Rufus giggling like schoolboys about Wyatt’s late-night activities with Jessica? That wasn’t awkward?”

“Nope.”

“So...that isn’t why you secretly keep a bottle of vodka under your bed?”

Finally, she turned. “Are you spying on me?”

Flynn glanced at the floor, because technically, he was. “I do remember reading about it in your journal. Lucy, when you gave me that book-”

“Which may or may not be true,” she interjected, perching on the side of the bed.

“It’s true, you wanted me to read it, and I did. Look, at first, all I cared about was that it was a tool to take down Rittenhouse, but the more I read it, the longer I stayed with it...the more I felt like I knew you.”

He watched her face as he spoke, watched how she struggled to find a reason, an excuse not to listen. Not to allow herself to feel anything, even about something as simple as a journal, because it was so much easier to pretend to be numb. Or, if not easier, safer.

“Lucy, damn it, sometimes, I feel like I know you better than you know yourself.”

“What do you want from me, Flynn?”

Everything. He opened his mouth to tell her, something. Something true, but not so true that it would scare her. Maybe something small, like how sorry he was for his part in every terrible thing she had seen. Or something even smaller, like the way he felt when she reached out for him to get down from the Lifeboat, without even thinking twice about it. She trusted him, on some level, even if she didn’t realize it yet. How he wished she would accept at least that much from him. If not trust, then at least acknowledgement that there was something between them.

“You don’t know me,” she snapped, but her voice lacked the heat of anger, which he deserved.

At that moment, Flynn realized the problem. As always, it was time. It was too soon. Lucy wouldn’t listen now, no matter what he said. She was cornered, like an injured animal, still more hurt and afraid than anything else. She still hadn’t given herself permission to be angry. At least, not at the one who deserved her anger the most.

He backed away slightly, shrugging. “Well, I guess you and I are having our own awkward moment right now.”

Before she could respond, there was a knock on the door. A message from Rufus. It was time to go.

Flynn was really starting to get on her nerves. Lucy followed him out of the hotel room, but quickly decided she was tired of following him around, of waiting for him to tell her it was safe to move. Who the hell did he think he was, her personal protector? She’d never asked for that, especially not from him. All she wanted from him was to do the job, and not be Wyatt. Was that really so hard?

She was relieved to see Mr. Law coming up the stairs. Pushing in front of Flynn, she took the lead. “Hey Don, don’t bother bringing up the rest of the equipment. We’re meeting them over at Robert’s sister’s juke joint. We can record there.”

“Oh yeah, we went looking for him there a few days ago.”

Lucy felt a prickling sensation on the back of her neck. Don Law was infamous for working alone, at least, as far as she knew. “We?”

When gunshots suddenly rang out in the stairwell, Lucy found herself flying backwards, before she could react. 

Instead of hitting the wall, she found herself wedged against a warm, breathing hard surface. Flynn’s arm was like a vice around her waist, holding her out of danger. “Stay here,” he barked, before launching himself back into the line of fire. It was so crazy to her, so unthinkable how easily he risked himself. And yet, when it came to her, he never hesitated. He was always there, just when she needed him. Even if she didn’t realize it, because she was too busy wallowing in self-pity.

In that moment, Lucy decided to stop walking around feeling wounded, and follow in Flynn’s footsteps. At least, when it came to acting on her instincts. Carefully, she crept back into the stairwell, meeting Flynn’s glare straight on, even as she blatantly defied his orders.

“It was another sleeper agent,” he said.

Lucy translated the rest of his sentence, which his eyes clearly portrayed. “And we just sent her straight to Connor and Rufus.”

A few minutes later, in another stolen car, on the way to the juke joint, the vibe was surprisingly casual. Flynn drove and hummed along to the music, which felt oddly familiar, even comforting, for some reason. Sitting together as closely as they were (after all, bucket seats hadn't been invented yet), Lucy caught a strangely familiar scent. Spices, like rosemary and paprika, with a touch of something sweet.

“Do you oil your gun?”

Flynn looked at her sideways. “Is that a double-meaning?”

“What?” Lucy felt herself blushing. “No, I mean, literally. Do people still oil their guns? Is that a thing?”

“Oh,” he chuckled softly. “You’re referring to the smell. It’s something only a few people can pick up on, because it’s so faint. But yes, gun oil does have a cinnamon base. It’s something I do to prepare myself for missions, much like your thing with your nails. It calms me, forces me to sit still, but also gives me something to do with my hands.”

“What do you mean, the ‘thing with my nails?’”

Flynn swerved to avoid a pothole in the road. “You know, the way you always take the time to paint your fingernails, right before a mission. Whatever color used to be in style, or if they didn’t have nail varnish at that time, you do them clear. Some people might think you were being ridiculous,” he paused to smirk over at her, “but I get it. Rituals are important for people like us. Otherwise, we have a tendency to get caught up in all the contingencies, and forget to live in the moment.”

Lucy was silent for a long moment. It wasn’t just that he was right, or that the level of detail he’d picked up in his observations blew her away. It was because she’d never really thought about why she’d started that habit.

“It was actually something my mother used to do,” she told him, not even knowing why she felt the need to share. “It used to drive us crazy, Amy and me, especially if we were running late for something. My mom would get ready, then she would sit at the kitchen table and very carefully put another coat of nail polish on. Sometimes, we used to buckle her seatbelt for her in the car, because they were still tacky. Then, she’d drive to wherever, with her hands on the wheel, so carefully. I asked her once why she always waited until the last second, and she said it was either that, or run around the house nagging us to get ready and get in the car. This way, we always had to wait for her, instead of the other way around.”

By the time she was done, Lucy couldn’t see the road anymore. Her eyes were filled with tears at the memory. But also, she couldn’t stomach the recollection alongside the truths she’d so recently uncovered. About who her mother was. Who she’d always apparently been. Who that made Lucy by comparison. 

After a few more minutes of silence, another familiar song came on the radio. It was one they both knew by heart. When Flynn talked about his wife, Lucy felt a sudden sting of bitterness. That was especially strange to her, considering that she knew exactly how it felt to miss someone who no longer existed. 

Maybe that was part of why she was having such a hard time with the whole Wyatt thing. And with Amy. And with her mom. Maybe it wasn’t so much his relationship with his wife, or having them thrust in her face at every turn, reminding her that she would never be his happily ever after. Maybe it was more the realization that she’d been holding on to the hope of something that was never really real. Mourning over a relationship that not only wouldn’t be, but which had never truly existed in the first place. Because real love wasn’t so easy to just walk away from. Real love didn’t go away just because the object of your affection ceased to exist. And it didn’t abandon everything for a cause, no matter how much that cause was a family legacy.

In some twisted way, Lucy envied Flynn for losing his family the way he had, because at least he didn’t have to watch them disappear from his life, one by one. And now that Wyatt had Jessica back, suddenly it was like all those marital problems they used to have were totally forgotten. Every fight, every cruel word, every lie...buried by the hope of second chances. If she had the chance to go back and skip the Hindenburg mission, if she could choose to get Amy back and let her mother die of cancer, would she? Something told her that if she asked Flynn for his opinion, he wouldn’t hesitate. Just like he wouldn’t hesitate to help her do it, if she asked.

Was that really what love was? Not so much the idea of wanting someone, or needing them, but the amount of sacrifices you were willing to make on their behalf? Even if it meant giving up your own happiness, or walking away, or trading their life for someone else’s, or destroying the world in the process? Was it love that she felt for her mother, or some kind of syndrome? Was it love that she felt for Wyatt, or just a set of ironic circumstances? Was it love that made Flynn so willing to kill for the ones he’d lost, or just an excuse to do unspeakable things? And what was she willing to do for love, if anything?

For the rest of the mission, Flynn’s words kept repeating in her head: “Somehow, someway, we will save the people we love.”

Lucy wasn’t sure how far she’d go for her somehow, but at the moment, the options were too unlimited to consider.

Back in the bunker, Lucy found herself smiling again, against all odds. Laughing with Flynn about how good it had felt to finally win one, and be treated with a performance for their efforts. Smiling conspiratorially about what a gigantic dork Connor had been about the whole thing.

“I’m going to go put on some pants,” she said, elbowing Flynn in the ribs. “Go and oil your gun, and I mean that in the traditional, literal sense.”

His laughter was loud enough to echo as he took off down the hall toward his room.

“Lucy, can I talk to you a minute?” 

The voice stopped her in her tracks, and her smile instantly died.

Wyatt.

Lucy cleared her throat, pasted on a polite smile. “What did Agent Christopher have you do?”

Over Wyatt’s shoulder, Lucy saw Rufus and Jiya ducking into their room. So much for a private place to change, and rest, and regain her bearings. Wyatt was talking about a secret Rittenhouse base. Lucy really wanted to care, but with all the conflicting feelings swirling around in her head, she was having a hard time focusing. Until he mentioned her mother. 

“She got away.”

The swell of relief hit her like a punch to the gut, and hurt twice as bad. Lucy felt like the walls were closing in. She avoided looking directly at Wyatt, focusing instead on the strap of his pack.

“What about Flynn? I hope you kept him on a short leash.”

A flicker of anger was a welcome distraction. How dare he? Lucy smiled, but it was more like a snarl. “He was actually great. He really came through.”

Wyatt frowned, his tone demanding. “What happened?”

As if he deserved details, or she wanted to give them, after everything. “I’ll tell you about it tomorrow,” she said. “I’m sure Jessica’s waiting, she’s probably worried sick.”

Wyatt’s eyes softened, and he looked at her with that face, the one he’d always used when he was trying to get her to trust him. Before, Lucy had always melted immediately. Now, it just felt manipulative and wrong. 

“Lucy….”

“Tomorrow,” she repeated, more firmly this time. “Go, be with Jessica.”

Long after Wyatt went off with his wife, after a somewhat awkward dinner where Connor and Rufus did most of the talking (about how they had each, somehow, single-handedly saved Rock n’ Roll), after Flynn snuck off again without saying goodnight, after Denise left to go home to her loving family, Lucy once again found herself alone on the couch in the cold and drafty lounge.

Well, not totally alone.

As Flynn had predicted (or guessed), she had an eighty-proof plus one under her bed. The cheap vodka might have smelled like lighter fluid and tasted worse, but lately it was the only thing that helped her fall asleep. The only thing strong enough to silence her thoughts. Usually, it did the job and kept her nightmares at bay.

Except, for some reason, tonight Lucy didn’t feel much like forgetting.

After staring down the half-empty bottle for only-god-knows-how-long, Lucy made a decision. Tonight, she might drink herself to sleep, but she wouldn’t do it alone. She owed her future self at least that much. 

Plus, with everything that had happened, there was a big part of her that didn’t believe the booze would be enough. Sooner or later, something had to give. And with nobody to talk to and nowhere else to go, Lucy knew it was only a matter of time before she found herself slipping into a dark place. Darker than anything she’d experienced so far, but probably nothing compared to what would happen to her later. Only one person in the world knew the extent of what she could only guess. It was time to ask him for some clarity.

When she knocked on Flynn’s door, it was later than late. She had no idea what time. And yet, when he finally answered, he was still dressed. Fully awake. And not even a little surprised to see her, as far as she could tell.

Silently, he stood aside to let her into his room. Lucy brushed past him, already pleasantly buzzed enough from her first solo glass to avoid making any excuses or awkward small talk. As he closed the door behind them, Lucy went toward the chair. But she saw that there was a book on the seat, face down, like she’d caught Flynn in the middle of reading. Not wanting a closer look, just in case it happened to be her journal, Lucy veered away at the last second and plunked herself down on the only other available surface: Flynn’s bed. 

In the words of George Washington as he’d crossed the Delaware, “Dear God.”

Flynn didn’t know how it had happened, but Lucy Preston was in his bed, holding a bottle of vodka. She seemed fairly in control of herself, so she probably wasn’t drunk. At least, not yet. Still, it was a complicated situation, and the best bet was to tread lightly until he knew what he was dealing with. 

“So. Interesting evening we’re having.”

Lucy made a snorting noise through her nose. “I’ll say.” She hoisted the bottle, as if he might not have noticed she had it. “Got any glasses?”

“Somewhere around here, I think.” Flynn turned and made a show of looking through the cupboards and drawers of his desk, even though he knew exactly where they were. It gave him time to think about how he would proceed. Coming back to her with two rocks glasses, he handed her the least dusty and most recently washed. He kept the other for himself, polishing it with the hem of his shirt.

Without further ado, Lucy filled her glass more than halfway full and did the same for his own. Flynn raised an eyebrow at her generosity, but said nothing. He sipped at his drink, while she gulped hers. Part of him was impressed, while the rest was concerned. For someone so small, she seemed to be able to put it back. But then, maybe it wasn’t so much tolerance as a lack of restraint, in this case.

“Agent Christopher told me about the raid,” he said, as casually as possible. “On what they assume was Rittenhouse headquarters. Who would have thought that a single man with a government-issued rifle and a Go Pro couldn’t take down an entire shadow organization in a single night?”

So, maybe he was feeling a tad bitter about the whole thing. The fact that he’d been left out of the loop on a planned Rittenhouse attack was bad enough. But they had also completely botched it, by once again totally underestimating their enemy. He took a drink to defuse his frustration.

“I know, right?” Lucy looked at him sideways, drained her glass, then filled it up again. “Especially since Wyatt is so great at always finishing what he starts.” A small hiccuping sound. “Started.”

Clutching her glass, Lucy scooted back on the bed until her back was against the wall. Flynn rescued the vodka bottle before it rolled off the edge, and casually stowed it behind him, where she wouldn’t be able to reach it so easily. 

“Are you upset because he almost shot your mother, or because he didn’t?”

Lucy’s answering glare was surprisingly focused, and painfully sharp. “Wow, look at you, cutting right to the tough issues. If I wasn’t beyond done processing family drama, I’d probably be offended. But then, I kind of appreciate how you’re like, the only person in my life right now who doesn’t talk to me like they’re afraid I’m about to break down crying, so….” She chucked into her glass, coughing a little as she took another sip.

“Okay, message received,” Flynn leaned against the cold metal bars of the headboard, liking the way it grounded him in reality. If it wasn’t for the discomfort, this could just as well be a very bizarre dream. “I won’t bring up that subject again.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Lucy said. “But speaking of messages. What is it with men, huh?”

Flynn felt like he’d stumbled into something dangerous, although he hadn’t moved. “That’s...a complicated question, Lucy. I mean, men are generally the cause of all that’s wrong with the world. Traveling through history has proven that, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yeah, I mean, duh.” Rolling her eyes, she took another sip, only to realize her glass was empty again. “But I’m not talking about men in general,” she waved her hand in the air, “not in this case, I’m more talking about how they...they only want what they can’t have. Or they only appreciate it when it’s gone. And THEN….” Lucy paused her rant, just long enough to rummage through his blankets, no doubt searching for a refill. “And then, it’s only a matter of time until they start wanting something else they can’t have. Right?”

“I know what you mean, but,” Flynn edged sideways, hoping she wouldn’t see the bottle behind his back. But no luck. She spotted it and pounced, trying to swipe it away from him. Instead, she toppled forward, practically landing in his lap. Apparently, the first few glasses had removed all physical inhibitions, because she didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed. Or sorry. Giggling nefariously, she wriggled closer, trying to reach around him for the bottle.

“Bože pomozi mi,” he muttered, grabbing her shoulders and setting her upright, as far away from him as the tiny bed would allow. She made a sound of protest, eyes wide, like she knew exactly how adorable she looked. Flynn wanted to grind his teeth together, but instead, he tried diplomacy.

“Nobody’s trying to steal your cheap as dirt vodka. I promise.” At that, she stopped, looking at him solemnly with those deep brown eyes. God couldn’t help him now. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll pour you another if you promise to take it slow. Okay?”

“Ugh, fine.” With a deep sigh, Lucy nodded and rolled to one side, until her shoulder bumped against the wall. She picked up her glass and held it toward him. “Please sir,” she said, in a terrible British accent, “may I have some more?”

At that, her serious face broke, and she erupted in another fit of giggles. 

Flynn tried his best not to grin at her ridiculous drunken antics, but failed miserably.

About an hour after that, Lucy had lost count of the drinks she’d had, and her sides hurt from laughing. 

“Anyway, that was the night I learned why all of my school friends were terrified of Latvian girls.”

Lucy threw her head back and laughed, more loudly than she had in long, long time.

“I can’t believe you stayed! I mean, I knew you were brave, but when she pulled out the tools I would have been so out of there.” Lucy snorted, picturing the situation a little more vividly than she probably should have. Then again, the night’s conversation had crossed all limits of propriety and professionalism, a while ago. Drunk as she was, some part of her felt the need to one-up Flynn’s bluntness. She’d always been extra competitive when it came to telling stories, and now was no exception.

“This one time, in college,” she stage whispered, “There was this party at my friend’s sorority, and I had a contest with my roomates to see who could hogtie a frat guy the most securely. With his own underwear.”

Flynn covered his face, but she could tell from his shoulders that he was laughing. Was it even possible she’d made him blush? Flynn Garcia, the unflinching, cold-blooded killer? No way.

“Needless to say, I won.” Lucy bragged, feeling pretty into herself at the moment. “Thanks to my childhood obsession with Annie Oakley, and a lot of practice with a stuffed horse.” Flynn laughed even harder, and Lucy realized how that sounded, a little too late. “Oh, you know what I mean.”

“Well, I’m sure Wyatt would have critiqued your technique if he’d been there, cowboy that he is.”

As soon as he said it, Lucy could see Flynn regretting his words. Obviously, he hadn’t meant that the way it sounded, but in the seconds that followed, there it was again. The awkward hesitation. The onset of pity. Honestly, Lucy was sick and tired of it, and she wasn’t going to walk around on eggshells anymore. Especially not with Flynn.

Lucy put down her glass, which was almost empty. Again. 

“You know what, I can’t believe I’m even telling you this, but...I feel like it needs to be said, and you’re here, so. Everyone’s...including me, damn it, everyone’s acting like Wyatt and I had this big love affair that nobody knew about, but it was just one night. One time. And, guess what? I honestly don’t even remember the sex.” Her smile died down as she heard herself say it aloud for the first time. 

Suddenly, she wasn’t talking to Flynn anymore. It was more like she was confessing it to the universe. Her face felt hot, and tears pricked at her eyes, but she kept going. “It was more like, this feeling of, I don’t know...like I’d been waiting for something to click into place, and then it happened, and then it was over before I even realized it. And I just feel like, everyone needs to stop making it out to be more than it was. Because I’ve had a stomach flu that lasted longer than this so-called relationship. And it’s really...it’s just dumb.”

Flynn looked away for a moment. Then, he took another drink and laughed. Darkly.

“Well, that confirms one of my suspicions about our Wyatt.”

Face flaming, Lucy jabbed at Flynn with her elbow, but missed. “What does THAT mean?”

He shrugged. “I’m just saying, he’s too pretty to be all that talented in bed.”

She gasped, but couldn’t stop herself from laughing a little. “Ohmygod Flynn, what a bitchy thing to say! Just because he has like an Amber-an Abercrombie face, doesn’t mean he can’t...you know what, that’s....I’m not talking about this with you.”

“Hey, you brought it up,” Flynn’s smile was so smug, it made her want to hit him.

Lucy covered her face with her hands, sinking down even lower on the bed. “Oh god, I know, I did, didn’t I? Holy crap, I am so drunk.”

“Don’t worry, Lucy.” He patted her shoulder softly. “I doubt you’ll remember any of this tomorrow.”

“I hope you’re right,” she groaned.

“However, just so you know….” When he didn’t finish his sentence, Lucy uncovered her face and opened her eyes to squint at him, just to make sure he was still there. She was surprised to find him leaning against the wall next to her. When had he moved? Had he been there the whole time? She was too drunk to remember.

“When something is meant to be, you’ll feel it.” His voice was low and rough and confident, which was weirdly comforting. Lucy leaned against his shoulder, nodding as she closed her eyes. She was so tired, and it felt so good to have someone to lean on. Even if that someone was the last person she’d ever imagined herself sleeping with. Or, in this case, on.

“Thanks, Flynn.”

“And when someone finally fucks you the way you deserve to be fucked, I promise you, you’ll remember every detail. Vividly.”

Lucy’s eyes flew open, and she tilted her head to look up at Flynn. But his eyes were closed, and his head was resting back against the wall. Was it possible that he’d fallen asleep already? Had she just imagined him saying those things to her? Honestly, she couldn’t remember him ever using that kind of language. At least, not in her presence. For a few seconds, she held her breath and waited for him to say he was joking. Or at least, clarify what he meant.

“...Flynn?”

But he didn’t answer, and Lucy realized they’d both finished an entire bottle of vodka, so maybe he was passed out. Just like she was about to be. Shrugging off any lingering questions, Lucy curled up on Flynn’s pillow, tucking her feet under his legs for warmth. With luck, neither of them would remember any details in the morning. But for now, none of it really seemed to matter.

The rest of the night was a soft, comfortable blur.

Chapter Five: Sherlock and Awe

Last night, I had another dream about Flynn.

The moment he read the line in Lucy’s journal, Garcia felt something that reminded him of falling. Face flaming, he’d scanned the next few paragraphs, just enough to note that there were no important mission details included, before tearing out the page and throwing it directly into the fire. This was one thing about Lucy he didn’t want to know, couldn’t bear to know. How she truly felt about him, and what she thought about him in her most private moments. 

It was one thing to overhear her little jokes about his tendency toward violence, or pretend to be offended when she teased him about his serious nature. Watching her sleep was one of his favorite mysteries. Dreaming about her was one of his favorite ways to deal with insomnia, as he was only now discovering. But knowing the details of what she dreamed, while she lay there helpless, unguarded and angelic...that would undoubtedly prove to be his undoing.

That was probably why, the morning after their first night together—not in the way he’d imagined, but nearly as wonderful—Flynn got up before dawn and tucked her more securely into his bed. He didn’t want her to know how long he’d stayed, arms wrapped around her as she slept and dreamed and snored. He didn’t want her to ever feel ashamed for choosing to come to him in her weakest moments. So he kept his distance, making coffee and sitting vigil in his chair across the room, until she woke. 

A small gasp, followed by a groan, made him put down the book he was reading. Flynn waited, holding his breath to see what she would say. 

“Oh my god!” Lucy sat up too quickly, wincing and clutching her head. Her hair was disheveled and her face was rosy and mushed from his pillow. She looked edible. “Oh my god. Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for.” Even knowing how embarrassed she already was, Flynn couldn’t help but tease her, just a little. “You were a gentle and responsive lover.” 

She looked around, adorably disgruntled, but oddly much less upset than he expected.

“I wasn’t that drunk.”

Flynn laughed, sweeping a hand over his face to disguise how enamored he was. 

“Nothing happened.” He reached for her coffee. “Though, I appreciate the look of abject horror on your face. Thanks for that.”

It was a lie, cleverly disguised as a joke, designed to give her a chance to agree that anything happening between them would have been a terrible mistake.

But she didn’t. Instead, as usual, she took all the blame. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He frowned, biting his lip to stop himself from yelling at her to take it back. She was always apologizing for things that were not her fault. It was too early, and she was probably far too hungover to be lectured. “I enjoyed the company.”

She sipped her coffee and looked at him, with a funny expression.

He smiled. “What?”

“Nothing, I mean, don’t take this the wrong way, but...I just think it’s kind of insane that of all the people here, you’re the easiest to talk to.”

There was a pain in his chest, a tightness that he couldn’t ignore. Flynn took a deep breath and forced himself to shrug. “Well, we have both lost our families to Rittenhouse, and we’re both alone.”

The sadness in her face made him continue, forcing another joke, which earned him a wry smile. “We’re both geniuses. If anyone knows what you’re going through, it’s me.”

This seemed to make Lucy more uncomfortable than the thought of them being physically intimate together, for some reason. She took a deep breath, then another sip of coffee, before standing.

“Well, uh, I will now remove myself from your...personal space. Leave you to it.” Her tone was jaunty and forced, but Flynn didn’t blame her. “Thank you for the coffee and the uh...the ‘just talking.’”

Flynn smiled slightly and nodded. “Anytime.”

He meant it. No matter where he was, no matter what time or era, he would be there for Lucy. In whatever capacity she needed him.

Later, Flynn encountered Wyatt in the bathroom.

“Hey, any hot water left?”

“Stay the hell away from her,” the shorter man growled, in what Flynn could only assume was Wyatt’s version of a menacing tone. 

Flynn should have seen this coming, but he didn’t. Maybe it was because he was too distracted by memories of the night before. He remembered what Lucy had said about Wyatt, about how forgettable sex with him had been, and any anger he had toward the soldier evaporated like steam. He smiled.

“Oh, you mean, Lucy? You—you know, she’s not your wife, right? That’s the uh, blonde lady just down the hall. Unless history’s changed again.” He laughed, a short, humorless sound. 

“I’m warning you.”

Flynn returned Wyatt’s stare with what Rufus called his “this bitch” look. “What is it you want from her, Wyatt? Because if you have a problem, I suggest you talk to Lucy about it. She’s perfectly capable of making her own decisions. Don’t you think?”

With a smirk, Flynn turned away, knowing instinctively from a lifetime of fighting battles that the other man wouldn’t dare to attack him. As with most situations in his life, Wyatt simply didn’t have the balls. Flynn went about his morning as usual, showering in lukewarm water, whistling contentedly all the while.

Later that day, in 1919, Flynn found himself once again taking on the role of Lucy’s partner. When a policeman admonished him to “control your wife,” he felt it again, for a brief moment, that sensation of falling. But he quickly pulled himself back into the moment when he saw the look of sheer, murderous intent on Lucy’s face. Given her freedom, he wondered what she would have done. It occurred to him then that maybe he should offer to teach Lucy how to fight. Especially if they were going to continue to go on these dangerous missions against trained Rittenhouse operatives. 

After all, as he’d told Wyatt, Lucy had a mind of her own. And it simply wasn’t realistic to assume that he’d always be there to protect her. No matter how much he wanted that to be the case.

Unfortunately, Lucy also had a mind to take charge when the team was divided, as they certainly were today. She made short work of his and Wyatt’s conflict by splitting them up and pairing herself with Wyatt. Flynn tried to ignore how much that stung. He tamped down his concern over what might happen between them, focusing on the mission, and leaning into his darker tendencies to distract from unhelpful thoughts. 

That is, until Emma Whitmore showed up. Rage overtook everything then, as Flynn slammed the back-stabbing redhead into a wall and tried to decide on the quickest way to kill her. Smiling, even as she struggled, Emma taunted him with the memory of their ill-fated and ill-advised one night stand. As if Flynn could ever forget, could ever possibly forgive himself for such a gross miscalculation of his judgement. Letting her into his circle of trust—and for one lonely evening, into his bed—had been one of his biggest mistakes, and that was saying something. Before he could kill her, though, logic and Rufus intervened. Emma told them of her plan, and her reasons for betraying Rittenhouse. Even though her explanation made sense, Flynn knew better than to ever trust her again. He silently vowed to keep one eye on the treacherous woman at all times, and never turn his back toward her, no matter what. He especially worried about what might happen if she was to come face to face with Lucy again, since she’d so often spoken of her intense hatred of the “Rittenhouse Princess” when they were together. 

As he had then, Flynn suspected that Emma’s bitterness toward Lucy was rooted in jealousy. Unlike Emma, Lucy had at least been granted the illusion of a happy family—at least, before that happiness was corrupted and stolen by Rittenhouse. Unlike Emma, Flynn knew that only made it worse. Having the illusion of happiness, even for a short while—as he had, with his own family—would always be worse than living a life of simple pain. Loneliness was surprisingly livable, when you didn’t know anything else. From their handful of brief conversations, Flynn knew that Emma had been alone for most of her life. Some people would pity her for that, but he knew it only made her more dangerous and less compassionate toward others who had something to lose.  
Days later, Flynn found himself alone with Agent Christopher, dwelling upon that same lesson.   
With Lucy, Wyatt and Jiya all away in the 1980s, Flynn had very little to do but dwell and worry. He’d been trying to distract himself by reading, but eventually strayed back to Lucy’s journal, which he kept hidden behind a bookshelf in his quarters. Flipping through the pages calmed him like nothing else could. He found himself stopping at the page he’d torn out months ago, the one where Lucy had detailed a dream she’d had about him. Fondling the rough edge, he closed his eyes and tried to recall some of the words he’d read, before hastily ripping out the rest in an effort to protect himself from the truth. It was an act of cowardice, he realized now. Or maybe he simply regretted it in hindsight, since he had once again been left behind and out of the loop.

But watching Denise Christopher agonize over her inability to act in the face of losing her family, Flynn exploded. In a rare moment of connection, he admonished her to get off her ass and go to her family. Because even if the more you love, the more you have to lose, that didn’t mean you should stop fighting. That didn’t mean you should stop caring, no matter how much you wished to, no matter how much it hurt. After she left, and he once again found himself alone, Flynn had a moment of clarity. It was possible that he needed to start listening to his own advice, and living his life in the moment, instead of always obsessing about the past or the future. About what might have been, or what could be someday. In that moment, he resolved to make his move, as soon as he had a chance.

That was why, when Lucy stormed into his quarters asking about the journal, Flynn didn’t hold back. He told her everything, in spite of his promise to himself, and to her. Well, the older version of her, anyway. For the first time in a very long time, he allowed himself to be completely honest. He allowed himself to trust her. Allowed himself to show her how he felt, even if he couldn’t yet tell her in words.

“The rest, I suppose, you’ll have to wait and see what happens.” He took a deep breath, reinforcing his words with a clear intent that he hoped would translate. “We both will.”

___

The ride to Port Royal was long and hot, but much more pleasant than it should’ve been. Especially considering the thick wool petticoats that passed for underwear in the Civil War era. Maybe that was due to the company, or the lack of certain, other company. Rufus’s constant moping and Wyatt’s equally constant judgements were exhausting, to say the least.

By contrast, Flynn was an unassuming, yet reassuring presence. He kept his head on a swivel, just in case there were any militia lurking along the road, but he never seemed to let Lucy out of his sight. A far cry from how she’d been when they started, Lucy was growing bolder and more self-assured by the day. Strange, considering that her life had never felt more upside down than it did now. It was also surprising how many random skills she’d picked up and grown comfortable with in such a short time. Firing a gun was still scary, but riding a horse felt more like...well, riding a bike. Stealing was getting easier, too, but she wasn’t completely sure how she felt about that. Although, there was something to be said for the thrill. 

Smiling guiltily, she looked sideways at Flynn, who was humming idly to himself, seemingly relaxed even as his eyes scanned their surroundings. Hands loosely holding the reins, he seemed unaware of her gaze, but she knew that he never missed a thing. Flynn’s hands had always been a source of fascination for her, for some reason. Strong and lithe, long fingers that were capable of killing, and yet, so gentle when he wanted to be. She wondered….

Clearing her throat, Lucy adjusted her skirts around the saddle, forcing herself to look away.

“The frontier looks good on you,” he told her, after a long and companionable silence had passed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were one of the locals.”

Lucy scoffed, but smiled back at him. “Right.”

Flynn smirked back, seeing right through her casual act, as usual. “A nickel for your thoughts.”

She laughed. “It’s a penny, actually. Though, in these times, even a penny would be a lot of money to pay for my thoughts.”

“Don’t undersell yourself. Come on. Tell me.”

“I was just thinking about all the stuff I’ve learned to do, since I joined the Time Team.” He pulled a face at the name, and Lucy chuckled. “Well, that’s what Rufus calls us. Anyway, I never thought I’d ride a horse as my primary mode of transportation, or wear a corset when it’s not Halloween, or shoot a rifle, but then here we are.”

He nodded. “Here we are.”

“Still, even though I’ve done so much, there’s a lot I haven’t figured out. A lot of things I have left to learn.”

“Like how to have better taste in men?”

She frowned, and he immediately back-pedaled. “I’m sorry, that was meant as a joke, but it was badly timed.”

“Too soon, you mean? “

“Yes, too soon, and too harsh.” Flynn slowed his horse, so that they were side by side, when he looked down into her eyes. “Wyatt doesn’t deserve you. But that doesn’t mean you did anything wrong. The problem lies with his poor judgement, not yours. I should have made that clear.”

Lucy looked away, feeling suddenly flushed. “Well, then it wouldn’t have been that good of a joke.”

Flynn rode on, letting a while pass before he spoke again. “If you’d like, I can teach you some things.”

“Oh yeah, like what?”

“Useful things. Like how to disarm someone, or how to take down someone who is bigger than you are with the element of surprise. How to throw a punch. How to fight.”

Lucy bristled. “What makes you think I don’t already know?”

Flynn smiled. “Are you saying that you wouldn’t have punched me in the face by now, if you had the chance?”

Damn, there she was, laughing again. Garcia Flynn could be surprisingly charming, when he wanted to be. Lately, that was more often than not. Especially when they were alone. 

“Fair point. Okay, sure, I would like to know how to defend myself better. And how to handle a gun better, since people are always shooting at us.”

“Then, I’ll teach you.”

A few hours into the journey, they stopped by a small stream to water the horses and eat some of the food that Harriet Tubman’s people had packed. Nothing fancy, just brown bread and hard cheese, but it was surprisingly delicious. Especially when paired with cool, clear water from a stream that had yet to be polluted by modern industry. Lucy had to admit, that was one thing about the future that she never did miss when she left. 

After they were finished eating, Flynn took her behind a big tree and showed her how to hold his handgun, how to stand, how to plant her feet. “Stay calm, breathe deep, keep your eyes open, and go along with your instincts.” His words of advice, spoken into her ear from behind, made the hairs stand up on the back of Lucy’s neck. 

She pretended her face was flushed from the sun, and not from the way his arms felt around her when he corrected her hold, so politely. She told herself that it was just her usual social awkwardness that made her giggle when he got so close. But if she was really being honest with herself, it was something else. Something new and much more scary, because it was way more intense than anything she’d ever felt for Wyatt. Not butterflies, but fireworks. Not giddy, but hungry. That was a new sensation for Lucy, the feeling of craving someone, like she could take a bite out of them if given half a chance.

“When we get back to the bunker,” Flynn told her, “I’ll show you how to take me down.”

Lucy swallowed hard, and tried not to imagine how much fun that would be.

For the rest of the ride to Port Royal, she kept it light and even hummed casually to herself to pass the time. She tried to ignore the growing sense of panic that followed at the realization that something was happening between her and Garcia Flynn. Of all people, of all places, of all times.

And yet...somehow, over the past couple of days, something had changed. He wasn’t being careful around her anymore, at least not when it came to his feelings. The way he looked at her, it was almost palpable. Like he was daring her to be the person she had always dreamed of being, someone bold and sexy and intimidating. Someone who would rise to the challenge in his eyes, and stop mooning pointlessly over Wyatt. Someone who would be brave enough to “take down” a tall, dark and dangerous man like him. In spite of everything she’d been through, and everything she knew about him, there was some part of her that welcomed the challenge. That scared her more than she was currently willing to admit.

Back in the bunker, Lucy was quick to outpace Flynn and the others, beating them down the hallway and into the bathroom where she could shower off the dirt and confusion of their latest jump. Not to mention that long, hot, frustrating ride. Her legs were still shaking from the trip, and there was an unexplained ache between her legs that she suspected didn’t come from holding herself up in the saddle. Maybe it was all the dreams she’d been having lately, vivid and dark, and starring a certain forbidden someone. But she didn’t want to dwell on those. Especially not when she was naked and soapy, and standing only a few yards away from the room that her last lover shared with his newly pregnant wife. The hurt that had plagued her since she’d discovered that fact was slowly turning to anger, and hopefully soon, it would melt into apathy. Until then, Lucy decided she was going to distract herself in any way possible. Even if that meant playing with fire, and flirting with Flynn.

When she was clean, Lucy dressed in her casual bunker clothes and made her way to Flynn’s quarters, still toweling off her hair as she went. If memory served, he still had a bottle of whiskey hidden in his desk, whereas she was fresh out of vodka. He opened the door before she could knock, like he’d been waiting for her to come to him. Or, more likely, he’d been listening to the sound of the water running through the ancient pipes, and he knew she was finished with her shower. He was probably leaving to go and grab a shower of his own, she realized, too late. 

Maybe that was why he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Maybe that was why she couldn’t stop staring.

His historically-accurate pants were unbuttoned and riding low on his hips, exposing a dark trail of hair leading from his belly button to...lower. Lucy forgot to breathe, and also how to speak, as she struggled to find an excuse for why she was standing there wet, and why she hadn’t yet stepped out of his way. Flirting was all good in theory, but now she realized that you had to be in control of your wits to do it. And at that moment, Lucy wasn’t.

“Hello there,” Flynn said, smiling down at her, surprised but not visibly annoyed. “I’m guessing you’re looking for a drink. Don’t worry, I’ll just be a second.”

Flynn turned away, back into his room, and somehow Lucy took that as an invitation to follow. She squeezed through the opening in the doorway just in time to see Flynn drop his pants, and reach for a towel to drape around his waist. His back was facing her, so she could’ve turned away and left without him knowing. She could have done that, if her legs were working. But they were not.

“Uh, whoops, I’m sorry—” Lucy’s voice came out in a tiny, breathless squeak. “I thought you meant...I mean, I didn’t really see anything, I was just—”

Looking back at her over his shoulder, Flynn smiled. “By all means, do come in.”

Face flaming, Lucy backed toward the door. Tucking the towel around his waist, Flynn took a step toward her. Unlike her, he seemed completely shameless about the situation. Which was ridiculous, considering that she was the one who had just seen him naked. If anyone should be embarrassed, Lucy thought to herself hysterically, it should be him. Except, why would any man who looked like that naked ever be embarrassed, about anything, ever?

“You’re obviously...I’m obviously...um, I’m just going to go ahead and—”

“Wait, Lucy, where are you going?”

Lucy panicked as her legs collided with the edge of Flynn’s bed. That was when she realized that going backwards, eyes glued on Flynn’s naked chest, she’d missed the door by about four feet. Surprised and flailing, she started to fall with a strangled squeak.

“Careful there,” Flynn reached for her shoulders, pulling her back toward him before she could fall back onto the bed. Lucy clutched his arms, eyes flitting over his stomach, to his chest, and finally landing on his face. The look in his eyes was pure, delicious mirth. Positively evil, and yet, impossibly attractive. There was literally nowhere safe for her to move, or look. Nowhere she could go to escape the thoughts rampaging through her head. She couldn’t even hum her way out of this, not without seeming like a crazy person. Then again, maybe she was. At a loss for what to do, she closed her eyes and tried to think calming, appropriate thoughts.

Flynn laughed softly, but she could feel the vibrations coming through his chest. “Are you sure you haven’t already been drinking?”

“Of course not!” Frustration overcame mortification, and Lucy opened her eyes to find Flynn smiling down at her with his patented mocking expression. It was the final straw, as far as she was concerned.

“You know what, Garcia Flynn? Wipe that smirk. Off of your face. This isn’t what it looks like!”  
Placing both hands on his chest, she shoved him away from her, not as hard as she would have liked. But hard enough. Flynn took a step back, just far enough for Lucy to move away from the bed. But instead of using the opportunity to escape their maddening proximity, she found herself stepping forward, into his personal space. His very, very personal space.

Getting all up in his face—as Jiya would say—Lucy poked him in the chest with her finger. “I’m not trying to forget anything, or get over anything—anyone—right now. Okay? I’m just taking your advice, and giving in to my instincts.”

Eyes dark, Flynn nodded. “That sounds fair.”

As it always was when he spoke to Lucy, his voice was rough and soft at the same time. Dangerous but inviting. That feeling she’d been pushing back all day, that dangerous craving, was suddenly back with a vengeance. She had no idea what to do at that moment, except kiss him. So she did.

Pulling him down to her level, or as close as he could get, Lucy rose up on her toes and attacked his lips with her mouth. As she’d long suspected, kissing Garcia Flynn was nothing like anything else she had ever experienced. It wasn’t soft, nice, or comfortable, and it certainly wasn’t polite. Hungry wasn’t a strong enough word for what happened when their lips met. It was more like consummation, as in fire, and they were both instantly consumed by it.

Tangling her fingers in his hair, Lucy strained to bring herself closer, panting into his mouth. Flynn answered her unspoken request by sliding a hand down her back and pulling her into his body, crushing her against his chest. With his other hand, he cupped her jaw and tilted her head back, opening her mouth wider with his tongue before thrusting it inside.

Time seemed to slow down as they danced with only their lips, tongues and teeth. For the first time in a long time, Lucy stopped thinking and allowed herself to do nothing but feel. Instinct and physical need completely took over. In that moment, she felt fierce and unbound and totally certain of what she wanted.

And then, without warning, the Lifeboat jumped.

Chapter Six: (Not) All is Lost

A/N: Apologies for taking so long to end this fic. But here it is, the way I personally feel this awesome series should have ended. Spoiler alert: I’m evil. Enjoy!

They were all gone now. Everyone was gone. Everyone, except him.

“Why are you here?”

Shots fired.

Rufus, on the ground. 

Rufus, injured.

Rufus, dying.

Rufus, gone.

Suddenly, she was running. Holding a gun. Chasing Emma. Daring herself to shoot Emma, right between the eyes. Finally, a chance to end it. End everything.

In that moment, her anger was everything, blurry and cold, like the tears in her eyes. Slow-motion and seeping. Until everything was dark. Lucy didn’t even feel it, when Emma hit her. She gasped for air, throat closing, unable to make out the words. It didn’t matter, really. Nothing mattered. Lucy almost welcomed the darkness, when it rushed in at the corners of her vision. Good, let it take her. She deserved it. After everything, she still wasn’t strong enough to save what mattered. Not even herself. Distantly, she thought she heard someone call her name. When she opened her eyes, Flynn was there. So was his gun. The anger overtook her then, rushing back into her veins like poison. Her finger tightened on the trigger, again and again, but it was too late.

She was always too late. 

“She’s gone. She’s gone.” Emma was gone. Again. And Lucy was fading away with her.

“Flynn...I can’t….”

Flynn reached down and picked her up, wincing as he took her weight on his injured shoulder, but never loosening his grip. He held her to him, rocking her, surrounding her with his warmth. Lucy gasped, inhaling his familiar scent. He felt like safety, even after everything she’d seen him do. Everything he’d seen her do. It broke her, all over again. She sobbed into his blood-stained coat, until she ran out of tears, and the anger faded into sadness. The sadness was quieter, but heavier. It weighed her down, even as she finally collected the will to stand. Somehow, she found the strength to pick herself up, and help Flynn to his feet. Together, they returned to where Jiya was waiting, along with...the soldier. Lucy couldn’t bear to think his name, let alone look at him. Solemnly and silently, the four of them patched each other up as much as they could, and collectively turned their attention to laying Rufus to rest in 1888. Forever.

When they finally returned home, such as it was, the bunker felt colder than ever. Leaving Wyatt and Jiya to deal with Agent Christopher’s questions, to break the news of their ultimate failure as a team, Lucy took Flynn’s arm and stoically led him to the infirmary. They hadn’t spoken to each other, or anyone else, in what seemed like hours. But with him, Lucy felt like words weren’t always necessary. She helped him pull off his coat, careful not to tear open his bullet wound any more than he already had when he’d chased them through the alleys of Chinatown, or when he’d helped carry their friend to his improvised grave site on a quiet hilltop overlooking the bay. Someday, Jiya said, this place would be a park. Lucy couldn’t bring herself to take comfort in the thought, not when his killer would survive to enjoy that park, when he couldn’t. The sadness was turning back to anger again, but now it felt a little different. Less poisonous, more fortifying. Almost like her body was adapting to figure out how to use this new kind of fuel. 

After rolling up her sleeves and washing her hands, Lucy cleaned Flynn’s shoulder and started dressing the wound. Flynn watched her the whole time she worked, his dark eyes carefully tracking her movements, but he said nothing. His face was as unreadable as it had ever been. The bullet had passed through and through, so surgery wasn’t needed. She’d learned so much about combat wounds these past few months, more than she ever wanted to know. At one point, she stopped bandaging and just stared, imagining what might have happened if the bullet had gone just a few inches to the right. They would have had to dig two graves, instead of one. Two reasons to visit that park, and think about everything they’d lost. Eyes filling with warm tears, Lucy sniffed, shaking her head to clear the thoughts away.

“Lucy.” Flynn finally broke the long silence with her name, as he raised his uninjured arm, and reached up to gently cup her face.

Closing her eyes, Lucy let herself lean into his warmth again, just for a moment. A few tears escaped, no matter how tightly she squeezed her eyes shut to keep them in. He wiped them away with his thumbs. That was when she realized that he was hurting himself, again, trying to comfort her. She opened her eyes, and he was half-crouching, bending down to her level so they could look at each other face to face. His eyes looked at her, into her, and there was nothing in them but complete acceptance. No judgement, no anger, not even apprehension.

“Flynn, I—” 

Before she could continue, Flynn brushed his thumb lightly across her lips, and pulled her close. Her eyes fell closed, instinctively, as he kissed her. Incredibly gently. His movements were slow, but precise. The slide of his lips against hers was so soft, she had no choice but to focus all of her energy and attention on the sensation, otherwise, she might miss it. Wanting more of that sweet distraction, Lucy leaned into him, opening her mouth just enough to breathe in between them. His thumb pressed down lightly on her chin, and she opened a little more, inviting him in. 

Lucy’s sadness and anger melted away to make room for all the sensations she was feeling, and even though she knew it would return eventually, she let it go willingly. Flynn’s fingertips brushed away her tears, as his tongue swept across her lips, tasting and teasing. Arching her back, she swayed into him, stepping between his legs until they were as close as possible. His shirt was already halfway off, thanks to the bandaging process, but he wasted no time shrugging it off his other shoulder. Them, he reached for her corseted waist, pulling her hips against his. He slid forward until he was at the edge of the table, long legs fencing her in on both sides. She sighed into his mouth, running her hands down his chest, across his stomach, lower. Flynn threaded his fingers through her hair, deftly removing pins until what was left of her proper updo gave way. Then, he wound it around, lightly pulling against her scalp, encouraging her to drop her head back and leave her neck exposed to the attention of his lips and teeth. At the feel of his stubble scraping across her skin, Lucy shivered and moaned his name.

“Flynn…please.”

What she was asking him to do, she wasn’t totally sure. But he complied anyway, reaching down to pull up her skirts. His hands found her legs, sliding upward until they made contact with bare skin, just after her stockings ended and her historically-accurate underwear began. Digging his fingers into her hips, he spread her legs, urging her to straddle his waist as he lifted her. He turned as he went, until Lucy found herself perched at the edge of the table, with Flynn standing where she’d just been. Now, her legs were the fence, and he was the one who was trapped. Exactly where he wanted to be, it seemed. Because as he leaned in to kiss her again, his fingers tugged at the straps of her stockings, disconnecting them from her corset. His lips moved down to a spot just behind her ear, and Lucy closed her eyes and bit her lip, focusing on feeling only pleasure. 

One at a time, Flynn slowly rolled the stockings down to her knees, before sliding his hands back up her thighs, to disappear into the pile of skirts in her lap. Lucy could feel him searching for her, getting closer, as every move he made caused the stiff petticoat fabric to rustle and brush against her. The linen underwear she had on was just thin enough for her to feel that he was tantalizingly, excruciatingly close to touching her in the place she most needed to be touched. Panting impatiently, Lucy opened her mouth to beg again, but before she could get out the words, Flynn growled into her ear.

“Damn whoever invented these clothes.”

He sounded so frustrated, Lucy couldn’t help but giggle. He pulled back to fix her with a disapproving glare, which was ruined by the look in his eyes. Pure desire, so hot she felt scorched. Lucy stopped laughing, and grabbed him by the belt, pulling him toward her as she undid the buckle. As soon as her fingers undid the final button fastening his pants, Flynn let out a groan that sounded like a man possessed. His knuckles brushed the inside of Lucy’s thigh, and she gasped, pausing just long enough to let him get the upper hand. He smiled, satisfied like the devil he was, before dipping his head to kiss her again. The moment his lips met hers, his fingers made contact, and she whimpered into his mouth, gripping the waistband of his pants for survival. She’d dreamt of those skilled fingers, of all the other things (besides committing crimes) he could do with his hands, so many times. Now, Lucy knew that her dreams hadn’t been nearly creative, or vivid enough. Her hips bucked toward him, almost coming off the table completely in her urgent quest for more. Harder. Faster. Now.

She stretched her neck toward him, trying to deepen the kiss. But the high collar of her blouse fought against her movements, stifling her. She reached up to tug at it, pulling it away from her skin, which suddenly felt flushed and oversensitive. Flynn’s hands followed hers, around to the back of her neck, where a trail of maddeningly tiny black buttons fastened the shirt down her back. Fisting his fingers into the delicate fabric, he pulled back just enough to look at her, asking permission without words. She nodded. He ripped the buttons away, peeling her blouse off until she was bare from neck to shoulder, exposing her very low-cut corset. With one hand behind her neck and the other still buried under her skirts, he bent her back over the table, burning a trail down her neck with his lips. Lucy panted and gasped, biting back little moans and doing her best not to call his name loud enough that anyone outside in the hallway could hear. Then again, a part of her didn’t care about anyone else, anymore. Or anything. Not now. 

For now, the world was just them. Just this. Just these feelings, simmering for so long beneath the surface. Even with Flynn’s weight on top of her, she strangely felt less burdened. Maybe this was why so many people had sex at funerals, she thought briefly, before Flynn’s lips and hands made her forget all over again.

Hungry for oblivion, Lucy whispered what she wanted, using crude words and incomplete sentences, until Flynn finally stopped torturing her and gave her what she asked. All of him. No more waiting. Harder. Faster. Now. Everything else faded into background noise, then nothing, as Lucy gave herself over to the wild abandon of reckless, inappropriate, crazy lust. She couldn’t believe she had waited this long to feel this...free.

When it was over, Lucy came back to herself with a crashing certainty that this wouldn’t be the last time she lost herself. Looking up at Flynn, she saw herself reflected in his dark eyes, disorganized and uncertain. But all she saw in his face was awe. Reverence, almost. Not the typical male satisfaction she’d come to expect post-hetero-sex, or the regret-tinged-smile of a man who was still in love with his long lost wife, like that time with...the soldier. That was ironic, considering that Flynn had also lost someone in the past he’d claimed to love with all his heart. But no, there were no ghosts here. There was nothing else standing between them now. Lucy felt her breath catch in her throat as she returned his stare. The way Flynn looked at her, it was nothing short of worship.

Flynn’s unconditional love for her - and it was love, she could see that now - was too much for Lucy to handle at that moment. Not after remembering what she’d almost...what had happened.

Pushing him away, she hastily rearranged her skirts and stepped back until she ran into the wall. Damn, this infirmary was barely bigger than a closet. There was nowhere to run.

“I have to go,” she said, looking down, looking away, looking anywhere but at him. Shirtless, face flushed, lips swollen, and pants undone, he looked like her deepest, darkest fantasy come to life. And—God help her—she wanted him again. Now. Tomorrow. Forever.

But that would mean letting him see all of her, even the parts she didn’t want to face. Even the darkness, deep inside her. The hunger for power she’d inherited from her grandfather. The thirst for revenge that would undoubtedly plague her for the rest of her life, but especially when she thought of what had happened to Rufus. Or when she thought of Emma, or Wyatt and his treacherous wife. Deep down, a part of her would always wish she’d been strong enough to stop them, not to mention protect the ones she loved. If only she’d had enough influence, resources, and power to match them. If only she’d taken control when she’d had a chance. If only...if only she had her own time machine, and no rules holding her back.

Turning away from Flynn, she shook her head. In the back of her mind, now that it was cleared of sorrow and guilt, Lucy was already formulating a plan. “I need...time. I need to think. I need to be alone.”

She needed to come up with a plan. Something she could handle by herself. So that nobody but her would be in danger, if her plan didn’t work.

Lucy moved toward the door, but before she could open it, Flynn’s hand was on hers, stopping her from turning the handle. His chest filled her view, until she was forced to look up into his face. Dark eyes flashing, he was anything but unreadable. Every emotion was written across his face, as it happened. Desire, anguish, desperation, determination. It was beautiful, and terrifying.

“You asked me why I was here. Why I stayed. It’s you, Lucy. It has always been you.” Voice rough with emotion, Flynn moved around her until he was blocking the door with his body, then he slid to his knees. “Before you, I was worse than dead. The man I was, long gone, and barely worth remembering. You gave me a reason to live, and something to fight for that was so much greater than...than my thirst for revenge, or even for what was right. You, Lucy. You are everything in this world that matters to me, no matter what happens. No matter what you do, no matter what time we are in. History be damned.”

The vehemence of his tone made Lucy freeze. But it wasn’t because she was shocked, or afraid. It was because, deep down, she felt it. The absolute truth in his words. He would kill for her, or die for her, or let the world burn for her. He meant it. To him, she was the world.

In that moment, the quiet rage that had been simmering in Lucy’s veins distilled into something else: clarity. All her life, she’d been obsessed with stories, with finding detailed explanations for why things were the way they were. Why was the world as complicated, as unfair, as cruel, and as confusing as it was? Why was it so hard for those without power to change the rules? And why were the laws of time-travel so constricting? Why shouldn’t you be allowed to rewrite history in the interest of freedom, and justice, and fairness? And even sometimes, for love?

All her life, Lucy Preston had collected stories, other peoples’ stories. She’d edited them, revised them, even rewritten them a little. Always in the interest of clarity, and comprehensiveness, and getting things right. Even if, by nature, those things weren’t right. But now, for the first time in her life, she wondered what it would be like to simply...write the story. Could her version of history really be worse than the one they already had?

Sinking slowly to her knees, skirts pooling around her on the floor, Lucy took Flynn’s hands in hers. She pulled him toward her, until their foreheads touched, until she could wrap her arms around his neck. Until he could rest his head on her shoulder, fingers tangled in her hair.

“Promise you’ll run away with me,” Lucy said. “And we can make things right. Our way.”

Nodding into her neck, Flynn promised. “Our way. Together.”

Running her hand down his powerful back, across the scars he’d collected during a lifetime of fighting battles, Lucy tried to remember when she’d once thought of him as a monster. But no matter who he’d been, or what he’d done, only one thing really mattered: he was hers. Now, she would be his family. Together, they would build a new family, one that couldn’t be taken away by anyone. A new empire, more powerful than Rittenhouse had ever been. And a new story. Hers.

Already picturing how that story would end, Lucy smiled. “History be damned.”

THE END


End file.
